by Paula Byrne
James Graham eventually fell into debt, was imprisoned in Newgate, and descended into insanity. Mary later parodied him in her novel Walsingham, where he is Doctor Pimpernel, a jargon-spouting charlatan who is obsessed with beautiful young women. Walsingham is in a dangerous and delirious fever, which Pimpernel puts down to love:
‘The foolish fellow, I tell you, is in love; I know his case – have often felt it – see it at this very moment on the tip of his nose – in his right eye – on his forehead; – damme, on the very point of his chin. Well, you must cure him, Amelia: the sublime essence of your odoriferous breath will do the business. Nothing like the balsamic smile of a beautiful woman! More efficacious than all the drugs in Christendom; more skilful than all the bunglers of Warwick-lane. The breath of beauty would re-animate the heart of a dying anchoret! Nothing like it! I always recommend it in cases of extreme danger; seldom find it fail, where the patient is gifted with the true essence of sublime sensibility!’37
Like the real Graham, the fictional Pimpernel is a hypocrite, a shameless self-promoter, social climber, and sycophant:
‘Cannot stay – must be at Highgate by nine, on a consultation. Overwhelmed with practice; – dine every day with the first men in the kingdom; – walk arm in arm with nothing but nobles; always take the wall, and shove the blockheads into the kennel: a pack of vagabonds all together: no matter for that; – they give sumptuous dinners! Recommend me to the divine creatures. Double profit. – Do a great deal of private business among women of fashion.’38
Both characterization and style uncannily anticipate Jane Austen’s monstrous snob and show-off extraordinaire, Mrs Elton, in Emma.
Perhaps at some level Mary satirized Graham so severely in later years because she had been stung by the caricaturists’ implicit comparison between the two of them: where the quack doctor was explicitly in the business of selling sex, Mary had developed a reputation for promoting herself by means of her sexual allure. The Morning Herald reported that ‘the Perdita frequently seals her letters to her intimate friends with an impression of her own bust, which, being in wax, hieroglyphically conveys the idea of a melting fair, and is therefore kissed as the symbol of the beauty whom it represents’.39 By this device, she becomes a symbol of her own desirability.
Despite her association with Fox, North, and the Prince, it was Tarleton who had captured her heart. But the bad press she was enduring did not endear her to his family. They attributed his debts to her bad influence and her extravagant spending, a charge he strenuously denied in letters home to Liverpool. Mary was certainly spending heavily – she had recently ordered a state-bed of pink satin embroidered with mythological scenes such as Venus and Mars in amorous dalliance, reputedly ‘the most superb and elegant piece of furniture in Europe’40 – but the real problem was that Tarleton was a gambling addict in a circle at Brooks’s Club where huge sums changed hands in an instant. According to the press, he was quite capable of winning £30,000 from the Prince one night and losing all that and more to Fox another.
He found himself with no choice but to ask his family to bail him out. They agreed to help on the condition that he stop seeing Mary. His mother Jane had written a loving but firm letter pleading with him to give up his women and his gambling. On 5 May Tarleton wrote in desperation to his brother Thomas, pledging to break off his connection with Mary and flee from the gaming tables: ‘Before I plunge deeper into play which may be my destruction, I make this earnest proposal: if my friends will lend me money to pay my debts, which amount to near three thousand pounds: I most solemnly pledge myself to them to quit London and my present connexion instantly, to come into the country till I embark for the E. Indies and never to play again for more than five pounds during my life.’41
When Tarleton informed Mary of this plan, she was prostrate with grief and became physically ill. This was a pattern frequently repeated when they fought. During her indisposition Fox called daily at her house in Berkeley Square; the Prince of Wales was also said to be distressed to hear that she was ill and to have made constant enquiry after her. But she soon recovered and relaunched herself into society in style: ‘the envy of the frail world will soon be called forth by the launch of Perdita’s new vis-à-vis, which certainly surpasses in style and decorative embellishments, all the equipages that have hitherto graced the Cyprian circle!’42 According to the gossip, Fox was paying for this vehicle, which Benwell of Long Acre delivered to her at the end of May. An alternative story was that ‘The Perdita’s new vis-à-vis is said to be the aggregate of a few stakes laid at Brooks’s which the competitors were not able to decide. Mr Fox, therefore, proposed that as it could not be better applied, than to the above purpose, that the Perdita should be presented with an elegant carriage. The ill-natured call it Love’s Last Stake or The Fools of Fashion.’43
Love’s Last Stake caused a great stir amongst the ton. Benwell was praised for his design of the matchless and superb equipage. It was by far the most splendid that Mary had ever owned. The bodywork was brown, richly bordered with a mosaic-painting of straw and silver. In the middle of the door panel there was a mantle of pink and silver, lined with ermine, enclosing an oval in which her cipher half appeared among the rays of a rising sun. Below was a representation of a lion couchant. The lining of the interior was straw-coloured silk, ornamented with a pink and silver fringe. The hammer-cloth was entirely composed of embroidered lace; the buckles, joints, and springs were silver. ‘Mrs Robinson may now,’ concluded the Morning Post, ‘with infinite propriety, lay claim to a title she justly deserves, and without flattery, be proclaimed the Priestess of Taste.’44
Others were less enamoured of such show. A matter of days after the appearance of the new carriage, a satirical pamphlet was published under the title The Vis-à-Vis of Berkley-Square. Or, A Wheel off Mrs W*t**n’s Carriage. Inscribed to Florizel (Mrs Watson and her sister were courtesans also renowned for their ostentatious vehicles). Here Perdita became ‘Phryne’, the name of a whore in a poem by Alexander Pope. The pamphlet was in verse. The following lines are typical:
The Carriages, the Streets, the Town,
The Prince, the Pickpocket, and Clown,
All stare at PHRYNE’S station!
The very stones look up, to see
Such very gorgeous Harlotry
Shaming a foolish Nation!
There were also footnotes, one of which expressed particular offence at the new cipher sported on the side of the carriage, with its juxtaposition of rising sun and lion couchant: ‘if this was the Perdita’s own fancy it might be pardoned, as the folly of a weak woman; but manners and decency should have whispered, that such puns as the Rising Sun and the British Lion humiliated under the curtain of a Courtezan’s bed, were jokes unbecoming her fancy or her folly’.45
A newspaper report claimed that Mary threatened to sue the publisher of this pamphlet for libel:
we hear, from unquestionable authority, that the Perdita has given orders to her solicitor to commence an immediate prosecution against the author of a late poetical publication, called Vis-à-vis, in behalf of herself, and such others, of the sisterhood, who have, as the author has asserted, dishonoured the sash or cestus of Venus. We are further informed, from the same authority, that a subscription is opened in the vicinity of Pall Mall and St James’s-street for carrying on the prosecution.46
The case does not seem to have come to court. Perhaps Mary was just making the threat in an attempt to forestall further, more vicious satires.
Tarleton’s debts had become public knowledge. A letter to his brother reveals his state of mind: ‘I am at a loss what to do and what to say – Weltje [his principal creditor] is very importunate for his money and I can at present devise no way to satisfy him – it is lucky I returned when I did to this place for a report was prevalent (the P of Wales told it me) that I had shot myself – God forbid!’47 He told his mother that he was contemplating selling his commission. She responded by telling him to give up his carriage, his ‘
boundless extravagance’, his ‘useless train of Men Servants’, and his expensive house in St James’s. In return, she would pay off his commercial creditors – but not his gambling debts. After a flurry of correspondence, and the intervention of Tarleton’s old commanding officer Cornwallis, Mrs Tarleton wrote a long and impassioned letter laying out her position to the effect that she would not be able to assist him ever again and that he should leave immediately for the Continent. ‘See your follies in their real light, and become a new man,’ she wrote, before turning in her final paragraph to the person she held responsible for her beloved son’s parlous condition: ‘I must also add before I conclude this letter that it will give me real pleasure and satisfaction to hear that your connection with Mrs Robinson is at an end – without that necessary step all my endeavours to save you from impending destruction will be ineffectual.’48
Tarleton’s reply made no mention of leaving England or of Mrs Robinson. Though his mother finally agreed – much against her better judgement – to pay his gaming debts, she continued to press him on the point: ‘I am much surprised You have not yet made me acquainted with your view or intended destination on the Continent or taken the least notice of the paragraph in my last Letter in regard to Mrs Robinson – I must desire in Your next You will be more explicit on both these subjects.’49
It was July by this time. The public were surprised that Perdita was not seen parading Love’s Last Stake in the charioteering circles of Hyde Park. Her secret reason was soon out. As usual, the Morning Herald was first to break the story: ‘The Perdita is pregnant!’50 At the same time, she could not escape the consequences of Tarleton’s debts and she was desperate to keep him in London, despite his family’s protestations that he should leave for the Continent forthwith. Her life was at a turning point. As Laetitia Hawkins put it, one moment ‘the men of the day in Bond Street still pirouetted as her carriage passed them’, but the next, the vehicle was reclaimed by its maker and Tarleton had fled.51
CHAPTER 15
The Ride to Dover
In the [summer] of 1783 our poet was attacked with a violent and dangerous fever, occasioned by travelling all night in a damp post-chaise, to do an office of pecuniary friendship, for one who has since repaid her with neglect and ingratitude.
Preface to The Poetical Works of the Late Mrs Robinson
Mary had word that Tarleton would be forced to leave the country unless he immediately paid off a debt of £800. She had no property on which she could instantly raise such a sum, so she sent a note to Fox requesting a loan. That evening she went to the opera with her French admirer (and ex-lover) the Duc de Biron and ‘an English nobleman of the highest rank’ – probably the Earl of Moira, who was always a good friend to both her and Biron. After the show, they returned to her house in Berkeley Square for supper. Whilst she had been at the opera a messenger from Fox had arrived with £300 and a note promising the remainder of the money in the morning.
She was anxious about Tarleton. He had promised to meet her at the opera, but had not joined her there. Nor did he come to her house. His own funds were reputedly diminished to a paltry £20. She sent servants to everywhere she could think of: his lodgings, his club, the homes of his friends and of Weltje. He was nowhere to be found and there was a rumour that he was already on the road to the Continent. Between one and two o’clock in the morning, without dressing herself for the night air or thinking of her pregnancy, she ‘threw herself into a post-chaise to follow him’.1
What happened next will never be fully known. According to Maria Elizabeth Robinson’s continuation of her mother’s Memoirs, ‘An imprudent exposure to the night air in travelling, when, exhausted by fatigue and mental anxiety, she slept in a chaise with the windows open, brought on a fever, which confined her to her bed during six months.’2 An early biographical sketch, which has a fuller account of the incident than any other source, says that she let down the glass and fell asleep, then ‘At the first stage, she was obliged to be carried into the inn, almost frozen.’3 This sounds like hypothermia, which seems very unlikely on a July night in southern England.
The consequences of the ride to Dover were drastic. ‘From that hour,’ according to the early biographical sketch, she ‘never recovered the entire use of her limbs. For a long time the joints of her fingers were contracted; but they were afterwards partially restored, and she could even write with facility. But from the time of that accident, she could never walk nor even stand; and was always carried from one room to another, and to and from her carriage.’4 Whether her subsequent condition was always so severe is very much open to question, but there is no doubt that her health was never the same again.
The most trustworthy account is that of the daughter who stayed with her and nursed her for the rest of her life. She explains that after the long fever ‘The disorder terminated, at the conclusion of that period [six months], in a violent rheumatism, which progressively deprived her of the use of her limbs.’ At the age of just 25 the woman reputed to be the most beautiful in England was ‘reduced to a state of more than infantine helplessness’.5 A violent rheumatism does seem to be the correct diagnosis. That is certainly how her illness was described in later years by those who knew her best.
Acute rheumatic fever is now very rare in industrialized countries, but it remains common in the developing world and it was rife in eighteenth-century England. It is a disease that affects several parts of the body via the immune system, induced by streptococcal infection.6 Females are more often affected than males and children than adults; infection rarely occurs beyond the age of 30. There is always a latent period between the infection and the development of acute rheumatic fever. This seems consistent with the timing implied by the preface to Mary’s Poetical Works, which notes that ‘The languor which remained on the abatement of the disease terminated in a rheumatic fever.’7 Acute rheumatic fever most commonly affects the joints. It also weakens the heart: when Mary died at a relatively young age the diagnosis was ‘dropsy’, which means heart failure.
The chief manifestation of acute rheumatic fever is severe arthritis that migrates through the large joints. The knees and ankles are most commonly involved; only rarely are the small joints of the hands affected – Mary was fortunate in this at least, given that she remade herself as a prolific writer. At various times in later life, she suffered from especially bad swelling of the ankles. The fever and the long period of confinement to bed, leading to Mary’s long-term problems with her legs, probably set in up to three or four weeks after the original infection. But what was the source of that infection and did the night-time carriage ride have anything to do with it?
When Mary set off for Dover she was pregnant. But she never had Tarleton’s child – and, as far as we know, she never became pregnant again. Streptococcal infections are frequently located in the vagina. The most likely explanation of events is that she had a miscarriage in the post-chaise and an infection resulting from it was what led to the acute rheumatic fever. There is supporting evidence for this in some private gossip recorded at the time: Lord Pembroke wrote to a friend on 13 August to the effect that ‘Her face is still pretty, but illness has brought on a disadvantageous additional scowl to it; and as to her body, she is quite défaite … She may possibly come about again, but she must not go any more to an Opera on the day of miscarriage.’8
Newspaper reports of the misadventure proposed various causes, several of them malicious. Thus the Morning Herald on 31 July: ‘Mrs Robinson lies dangerously ill at her house in Berkeley Square; the envious part of her own sex attribute her indisposition to chagrin at the declining influence of her charms; if that is really the case, the name of Perdita will soon be too truly applied to this once all-conquering impure.’ ‘Amorous and Bon Ton Intelligence’ in the Rambler’s Magazine for 26 August, claimed that ‘Mrs Robinson is not as bad as was reported; but is still very unwell. Her indisposition is said to be occasioned by her love of gaiety; and keeping her revels of midnight beyond her str
ength of constitution.’
Tarleton, meanwhile, had not gone to Dover, as Mary thought, but to Southampton. From there, he wrote to tell his mother that he had left town and was en route to France. He finally gave her the information that she had been waiting to hear: ‘You desire me to write more fully about Mrs Robinson – The connection is closed. She is too proud to follow me and she has long been too generous, always I should have said, to encrease the poverty of any man – I most solemnly assure you she has not been the occasion of my bankruptcy – Play alone, which I abjure, has – I won’t now complain of my bad fortune, it is too late.’9 It was some time before he discovered that Mary had actually followed him, with the money he needed.
In the middle of August, Mary went down to Brighton, then called Brighthelmstone, which, like other seaside resorts of the time, was a favoured destination for convalescents. It was around this time, in close proximity to the Prince’s twenty-first birthday, that her annuity was finally paid. Perhaps news of her ill health contributed towards the Prince’s decision to resolve the question of the bond.