The Heir of Douglas

by Lillian de la Torre

  The Hepburns of Keith are at Liége before them. The change in Lady Jane surprises them. She looks as round as a clew or ball of yarn, and when Mrs. Hepburn sees her unclothed, the rotundity of the formerly slim figure surprises her the more. The Hepburns are witness to a bit of by-play which strikingly epitomizes the anxiety of pregnancy, when Colonel John hustles a noseless beggar lest sight of his horrible visage mark the unborn child, and gentle Lady Jane chides his roughness.

  Nobody was left at Sedan to remember the Steuart party, but Isabel Walker had a lively memory of the landlady there. “I hope,” remarks this observant woman, “that Madame has not far to travel, for I observe she is near her time; though I had not seen the big belly, I would know by the face that her time is near.”

  They rest nine days at Sedan, and then go on. At the next stage the coach picks up a fellow-traveller, a notary of the district. The notary remembers the trip very well indeed. Colonel John has taken it upon himself to treat everybody to their meals along the way, and brushes aside with a large gesture the notary’s courteous protests. Sometimes the road is uneasy. Mountain roads are under construction, spread with an under-surface of sharp flints; the coachman alternates between rock-strewn centers and muddy edges, and finds no comfort in either. My Lady Jane does not complain, and the notary notices nothing out of the ordinary in her appearance. At Rhetel she is uneasy, and has to be put to bed by all her women.

  Colonel John, Mrs. Hewit, and Isabel Walker all remember that uneasy moment. They fear she will lose the child; but the next day she is able to go on to Rheims, and there they settle.

  When the Duchess arrived at Rheims, Andrew Stuart had been there before her, and testimony was no longer so unanimous in my Lady’s favour. Miss Louisa Hibert would not say that Lady Jane had been pregnant at all.

  “What!” cried Miss Primrose. “For me, I was at Aix, I perceived it well.”

  “Well, Miss, if you perceived it, I did not see it: the little hoop which she had might hinder me from seeing what the matter was.”

  “These gentlemen of the other interest,” said Miss Primrose angrily, “who were the first comers, have given money; and with money people do everything.”

  Miss Hibert denied this. She also denied that she was piqued at Madame Steuart, who was always gracious and polite. She did permit herself to remark that Colonel Steuart had played her a trick, in not continuing at her house so long as she had counted on.

  They let her go; she was a hostile witness. The sisters Sautré, mantua-makers, were equally unhelpful. They had told Andrew Stuart, and they repeated to the Duchess, that they had measured my Lady in refitting a gown. It was a summer gown of white, to be refitted in the French fashion, and there was another white one to be Frenchified for the thick companion. Over hoop and stays they measured my Lady with a band of paper, across the back, and from the arm-pit to the haunch, and noticed nothing out of the ordinary about her. When she came back from Paris with a baby, one of the Miss Sautrés exclaimed in astonishment: “Mon Dieu! I must be a great beast, not to have perceived at all that Madame was so near her delivery!” It did not, she said, cross her mind that it was not Madame’s baby; Madame was always fondling the child.

  At Rheims, in June 1748, my Lady keeps the house. Colonel John lounges in coffee-houses, and makes some useful friends. There is a burgher of the town, who introduces him to the best quality. There are two young Scotch soldiers of fortune, whiling away their French captivity in the same coffee-houses. They sometimes lend impecunious Colonel John a piece of gold, which by some special scruple he never fails to repay. He was once a poor young soldier himself.

  While the Colonel rambles, Lady Jane is keeping ennui at bay in sentimental company. Miss Hibert has a brother, a pretty youth in holy orders. Like a scene in high comedy is their meeting. The red-headed lady is pacing in the passage, bending her glowing head over a book. The young abbé picks up his cue:

  “Pray, madam, what book is that?”

  It is a book of pious maxims; for a good guess, Thomas à Kempis.

  “Why,” exclaims the young priest, “this is a book conform to the maxims of the Roman Catholic religion; and I am much astonished to see that you, who have so noble an education, so much light and intelligence, and who relish the book, still do not accept the maxims.”

  My Lady takes a liking to this sugared conversation.

  “Would you, Sir, have any time to come and converse with me on these matters?”

  Would he! He is with her every waking hour. Mum Mrs. Hewit sits by understanding not a word of the discourse to which Lady Jane listens in transports.

  “But, Madame,” he cries, “in vain do you relish this, if you do not adopt it! For without the practice you render useless all the efforts of grace.”

  To which typically Catholic remark the lady returns a typically Protestant reply:

  “Sir, I wish we had a minister here, and if, in your debates, you had the superiority over him, I declare to you I would become Catholic tomorrow!”

  During their tête-à-têtes, my Lady makes herself so much at home as to lay by her little hoop, and the young abbé perceives the monticule utéraine fort notable, the uterine prominence very noticeable. He remarks upon it to his sister Miss Louisa:

  “Do you know what persons you have here? They do not say they are married; but,” says the youth, with perhaps a twinge of jealously, “there is a mystery in this, for the lady appears to me to be evidently with child.”

  “My brother,” says she, “these are persons of consideration, who have been directed to me by M. Andrieux, and if I perceive anything, I will go to him to ask what is in it; and besides, they are strangers, who are here today and elsewhere tomorrow.”

  Miss Louisa repeated her crushing remark, with considerable self-approval, to the Duchess.

  The waiting-days must end; my Lady is nearing her time. From someone or other they hear panicky talk of how the midwives of Rheims are more ignorant than brutes. They suddenly decide to go to Paris for the best assistance. The maid-servants must stay behind; they understand that money is short. The Colonel engages three places in the Paris coach.

  That vehicle departs at two in the morning. My Lady sits up to wait for it. The young Scotch soldiers sit up with her. When the lumbering high vehicle is ready to roll, they escort her to where it stands in the inn yard. She is so unwieldy that they are forced to lift her in by main force, sideways. They bid her good-bye and God-speed, and off she goes.

  In the coach with her, along with others whom time is to swallow up, are two very unlike ladies, a mother of twenty children, and an ancient virgin, mother of none. They never forget Lady Jane Douglas. She sits in the rocking vehicle, wrapped in her scarlet cloak, and never complains. Mrs. Hewit does the complaining. My Lady is gracious, and Colonel John is charming. He gives up the best place to the old maid. His lady treats her with much fondness and friendship. Her waiting-woman, like the widow-lady in another coach a few weeks later, gets a special mark of favour; my Lady invites her to enter her service.

  Neither the prolific lady nor the barren one can see anything unusual about Lady Jane’s appearance.

  They are three days on the road, and the third afternoon the coach puts up at the coaching-inn in the suburb of La Vilette. Here the company disperses, and Lady Jane, Colonel John, and Mrs. Hewit continue alone to the end of the journey, the Hôtel de Chalons in the rue Saint-Martin, kept by one Godefroi.

  On August 15 the people at Rheims see them come back again. They have their child with them, and the child’s nurse, and the nurse’s husband. The nurse is concerned about her little charge. He even has a rupture by the negligence of his casual former nurses. No sooner do they get to Rheims than he sloughs his skin. After that he does better, and begins to thrive under her care. She notes his hair is chestnut-coloured, but she does not notice whether his eyes are darker than any other baby’s.

  Good friends at Rheims make the new Douglas heir welcome, and congratulations pour in. Delight
ed friends celebrate “the amiable twins, who are the master-pieces of the amorous exploits of Colonel Steuart.” Unreconstructed Jacobites hope they are born to redress their country’s injuries. Jocose Frenchmen attribute their existence to the efficacy of the medicinal waters of Aix. Colonel John is highly elated at repeating his father’s achievement in siring twins. He boasts: “The people of this country do not know how to beget children; but I can make two when I please!”

  One of the two Rheims takes on faith. He is understood to be at nurse near Paris, for the improving of his health. The other is soon put on public display with a great flourish.

  My Lady Jane borrows a hundred pounds from a wealthy young admirer, and Colonel John stages a memorable christening. The great event takes place in the old church of Saint-Jacques, and the aisles are thronged with the first families of Rheims and visiting Britishers of quality. The curé gets gold to make Archibald James Edward Douglas Steuart a Christian. (In the process he makes him a Roman Catholic; but the less said about that the better.) The lavish father pays the organist six livres, and another six go for the sounding of the great bells. As the heir of Douglas is borne from the church in his christening robes, with his sponsors glittering behind in satin and gold embroidery, the beaming Colonel scrambles handfuls of silver among the crowd. The great day concludes with a supper at the Steuart lodgings, graced by the sponsors, the quality of Rheims and Britain, and the Bishop of Joppa, slightly sulky at not having had the honour of performing so important a ceremony. It is a select company, and there is not (the landlady remarks with approval) great fracas.

  With equal approval she notes Lady Jane’s devotion to the child. Archie is her whole life. She remains at home constantly attending him, and alarming herself at his least cry. When he is teething, she is up and down all night, fearing when she hears his healthy roars that he will die in the hands of the maids. When the Colonel in high spirits dances the chortling child in his arms and tosses him high in the air, my Lady is frequently observed to scream out, and rescue the precious boy from such rough handling.

  Lady Jane is often heard to wish her weakly second twin were with her; but she has not the money to send for him. Money is shorter than ever, with three more mouths to feed. She is reduced to burn her laces; the landlady has to wait for the rent, and the Colonel is busier than ever promoting small loans in coffee-houses. So the family continues separated, and only letters bring news of Sholto. Miss Primrose, age sixteen, is interested to see such letters arrive. Colonel John reads them aloud to my Lady, for her sight like her French is imperfect, and she passes on the news to Mrs. Hewit and the maids. Mrs. Hewit in turn passes it on to friends elsewhere:

  “I know you will be fond to know, how our dear lambs are,” she would write to Mrs. Hepburn. “Archy is the lovelyst creature iver was seen, and ivery week we get better and better accounts of letell dr Sholto. Archy had a letell teething brash, and, what was pretty odd, Sholto had it at the same time, but as yet none of them is got out any teeth.”

  Filibuster Rutledge’s wife is impressed with Lady Jane’s maternal anxiety to hear news of Sholto. A letter is overdue, and my Lady sends to the post-house not once, but four several times. Nor can a servant be trusted; the Colonel must go himself. After three wasted trips, back at last he comes exclaiming for joy: “Good news! Good news!” It is trumpery good news, importing that the child has been very bad in cutting his teeth, but God be thanked he is rid of the affair for that time: but Lady Jane is overjoyed to get it.

  At last, in November 1749, the plate fleet comes in. My Lady can pay up her debts, fetch her second boy, and leave France. They borrow a chaise, and off they go, Lady Jane, Colonel John, and Mrs. Hewit, once more Paris-bound. Once more they bring back a boy-child.

  Rheims studies the second twin with interest, and notes with some astonishment that far from resembling his brother, big, brown, and dark-eyed, he is much smaller, very blond, and blue-eyed. The Syndic’s lady says as much to Colonel John, and adds: “You are probably more attached to Archie, as you have always kept him near you, and placed the other elsewhere.” Colonel John laughs off this remark:

  “For the one, he is our first born, he must uphold his family; as to the younger, he may row the galley as best he can!”

  Within a very few days, they all go off to England, and Rheims sees Sholto Douglas no more.…

  In order to piece together a continued story, the Duchess of Douglas performed prodigies of investigation. In one place and another she interviewed witnesses in battalions. Upon them she exercised her homely charm, too genuine to be called condescension. At Rheims she set up her headquarters at the Inn of the Moullenette, and invited strategic witnesses to dine. When she learned that Lady Jane died owing Mrs. Rutledge fourscore and fifteen livres, she paid it at once. She was equipped with a short “Exposé of the Affair of Mr. Douglas,” in French, doubtless from the pen of Hume’s cousin, and she distributed it freely to neutralize the adverse impression created by Andrew Stuart when he got to Rheims before her.

  She was also equipped with a miniature of Archie. It was a good likeness. “You have been well served by the painter,” said the Syndic’s lady. When Nurse Mangin got sight of the picture, she burst into tears and kissed it. This procured her, besides her journey-money, a new petticoat and short coat to cover her rags. Never was rumor less true than the one to the effect that by nursing Archie she had made her fortune. The good nurse at Madame Pompadour’s behaved with greater coolness. “Would you know this person?” they asked her. She looked at the brown-eyed boy, and shook her head. They had to tell her it was Archie. When they showed it to her a second time, she was perfected in her part. She said she was charmed to see him.

  On one point, from Aix to Rheims, opinion was unanimous, the Duchess found. Lady Jane, said her friend who had no house at Brussels, was a woman of probity and virtue, respected and loved by all who knew her. Mrs. Rutledge remembered her as politeness itself, of a sweet and amiable behaviour, full of sentiments of virtue, modesty, and religion. The Aix landlady loved her like a sister, and all the landladies, even acidulous Louisa Hibert, echoed her praises. Lady Jane was always gracious and polite, admitted Mlle Hibert. She was very amiable, said another landlady, and as gentle as an angel; and she left in good friendship, and honestly. These tributes did not surprise the Duchess, because she had heard the same kind of thing in Scotland; but they pleased her.

  Duchess Peggy went back to Paris in May, well satisfied with what she had accomplished. She had proved and over-proved the pregnancy. For accoucheur she had Louis Pierre Delamarre, deceased, as he lived in the memory of his friend Menager. She addressed herself vigorously to the task of finding the woman to whom Delamarre had entrusted Sholto. It was a monumental undertaking, for every child of any pretension to quality was likely to be farmed out to a wet-nurse. The little creatures, arriving with monotonous regularity every eleven months, were a frightful nuisance to a woman of spirit, and her best recourse was to find a nursing woman of the lower classes, and farm out the little pest with her. If the nurse’s child, whose milk was thus sold, as it were, “under the cow,” should die for lack of his share, well, the peasants had too many brats anyway. Of the women known to have wet-nursed little Archie, both lost their own children in the process, a fact which no one seems to have taken any notice of whatever. It was in the natural order of things.

  So it was that the Douglas hunt for a wet-nurse was impeded by an embarrassment of candidates who had been nurse to an army of foster-children, of every size and condition of health, of every nation and complexion.

  The hunt did not start without clues. Mrs. Hewit had had much to say in her letters about the problem of nurses, and Colonel John had added some contradictory details when examined before the court.

  The younger twin, wrote Mrs. Hewit, was born so frail that they were in fear for his life, and durst not let my Lady know. She and the Colonel went often out of town seeking a proper wet-nurse, and had to go not a little way before they
found one they would trust. “At last we got on of the clinest best woman iver you sa, a farmer’s wife,” wrote Mrs. Hewit.

  The Colonel’s account did not exactly jibe with Mrs. Hewit’s. “Pier La Marr said,” he told the Scotch court, “the best chance for his living was the sending him to the country, where he knew of an excellent nurse in a village on the road to Amiens, the name of which I cannot recollect; and accordingly that night, or the next morning, Pier La Marr and the nurse did carry away the child to the village, where it continued for sixteen months. The village was about two or three leagues from Paris.”

  Mrs. Rutledge almost remembered the name of the village; it began with M. Dining with the Duchess, M. Menager, friend to Louis Pierre Delamarre deceased, supplied a name: Menilmontant. The word struck a chord in Miss Primrose’s memory.

  To query the wet-nurses of Menilmontant, the Douglas party enlisted the help of the parish priests of those parts. The curé of Saint-Laurent was disposed to be helpful. Soon his influence disseminated news of the inquiry as far as Madame Garnier, a milk-woman who dwelt at the Haute Borne.

  The Haute Borne was not on the road to Amiens, and it was not two or three leagues, but half a league, from Paris. Neither was it Menilmontant, though it was halfway there. Neither was Madame Garnier a farmer’s wife; her husband was a quarrier. But Madame Garnier had nursed a child for Louis Pierre Delamarre, and the Douglas party encouraged her. It was a foreign child, she said, with English lace upon his swaddlings. Delamarre hired her in advance, and brought her the child one night by torch-light, a delicate little thing who, the doctor said, was a twin. To see him there came a foreign man a-calling. One would think that the quickest way to settle her claim would have been to bring her and Colonel John together, and see if they recognized one another; but that test they never tried. She was too far out of line with Sir John already.