The Ladies": A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty Part 8

So much Irish luck and beauty kept the Gunnings constantly in the centre of court affairs. A poem celebrating their conquests was ent.i.tled, "The Grand Contest between the Fair Hibernians and the English Toasts."

The Queen of the Bluestockings said of them, when she saw them together, "Indeed very handsome; nonpareille, for the sisters are just alike take them together, and there is nothing like them."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Maria Gunning.]

IV

The Golden Vanity

A Story of the First Irish Beauties The Gunnings

It was the year of grace 1750, and old Mother Corrigan sat outside her door in Slattern Alley, smoking her short black pipe with a relish; and't was a good day with her, for she had told his fortune that morning for Squire Tyrconnel, on his way to fight a duel in the Phcenix Park with Lawyer Daly; and when it was finished, says she to him:--

"Let you count the b.u.t.tons on his body-coat, your Honour, and fix the third from the top in your eye. And when you stand up to him, say a prayer and pink him with your swordeen in that very spot, and the Lord grant him a bed in heaven, the old villain, for he'll never be asking one on earth again."

And as she said, so it was, and old Daly turned up his toes and never spoke more, when the Squire got him in the third b.u.t.ton. And an hour after, Squire Tyrconnel sent his purse with five golden guineas in it, and a pound of the best rappee to be found in the Four Courts, and all for Mother Corrigan, and she was a proud woman that day. Her house was stuffed as full of money as an egg of meat; but no one would think it to look at her; for she had it all hid away like an old fairy, so that no one would give a thought to it.

She was sitting at her door at the top of Slattern Alley where it turns into Britain Street, and she in the best of good tempers, when a lady came by with two young daughters beside her--a tall woman, with a fine blossoming colour in her face and an air like a peac.o.c.k spreading his tail and her eyes as clear as spring water. It would be hard to see a finer woman of her age in a day's walk, and all the gentlemen going to and from the Castle must turn to have another look at the three of them. Her dress might be handsome at first sight; but, closer, you could see she had it held up with pins and st.i.tches, and a bit of good lace fell over it to hide the wear in the front. Also, she drew her feet under her hoop, that they might not be noticed, though they were as small as a young child's.

And so she minced along with steps like mice, for fear of showing the burst in her shoe.

But for all that she held up her head like the deer in the Lord Lieutenant's park, and her pride was enough for a queen, and too much for a poor lady walking the Dublin streets and holding her skirt up out of the mud.

But it was the two she had with her that any lady might be proud of. There were never two such out of heaven; and sure it may be believed, for the world has said it often enough since that day, and will say it to the end of time. For the elder was a sweet rogue, with hair like red gold clean out of the fire, and eyes like a blue June morning, and cheeks like May flowers that a rose has kissed, and lips that better than a rose would kneel to kiss one day; and her smile lit up the street, and she tripped along as light as a spring breeze.

But the younger--sure the Lord was well pleased the day he made her face, for't was perfection's self, Her hair was a dark brown veined with gold, and her eyes like purple violets with the rain on them; and when she closed her long lashes 'twas like a cloud over the stars; and her mouth, and the soft smile, and the dimple that dipped when she laughed--a man would stand all day to watch her and not think long. 'Tis a strange thing that one girl will be like that, all beauty and s.h.i.+ning sweetness, and another, perhaps as good,--for better she could not be in her heart,--will be a poor sorrowful little victim that a cat would not look at in the dark!

And old Mother Corrigan saw them coming, and she took her pipe out from between her teeth, and says she:--

"Halt here, my ladies, the three of you, and hear the fortune that's waiting you--the way you'll be ready when it comes."

"Fortune!" says the lady, stopping, a girl in each hand; "'Tis the black fortune and the sad fortune that befell me since the day the gold ring was on my finger. And I don't want to hear any more, so I don't; for if I had more to bear than I have this minute I wouldn't face the morn's morrow."

But Mother Corrigan rose up as nimbly as a woman to a dance, and she looked the lady in the eyes as if she was as tall as herself, and, "Come in," says she, "for though 'tis a poor place, the beauty of the three of you will light it like candles, and 'tis here your luck begins."

So they went in, and the lady said she had not so much as a silver bit to cross her hand with, and indeed would have pulled her daughters back; but the old woman would not have it.

"Leave it so," says Mother Corrigan, "what matters an empty hand today when you'll fill the two hands of me with gold when the luck comes that's coming? Give me your word, my lady, and I'll take it for as good as five guineas."

So she gave her word to fill Mother Corrigan's hand with golden guineas; and the two young girls were standing by, their cheeks like burning roses for fear and hope, as the old witch caught the lady's hand, and gabbled something that was not a prayer, and the words came from her like a person talking in their sleep.

"High blood and poverty. Sure, your father had a crown on his head and no gold to gild it with."

But the lady pulled her hand away angrily.

"Then you know who I am. What's the good of play-acting? I guessed this would be the way of it!"

"I don't know and I don't care," says the old woman with a grin. "I'm telling you what I see, and till this minute I never laid eye on you or yours. Don't you be speaking again, for there's no sense in that; but harken!"

So she told her her father was poor and proud, an Irish lord with a castle in a bog and an old coach with the cloth hanging off it in flitters and the plough-horses to draw it; and that he never gave her a penny since she married, for he had it not to give. And she told her her husband was no better, but running after the cards and dice all day, so that all the world cried folly on her for taking up with him.

"But no matter!" says Mother Corrigan, "for you did a good deed for yourself that day you stood up with him in the church."

"A good deed!" says the lady, very angry. "Don't you be a foolish old woman, and you so near your end. For I got nothing out of it but care and crying and pinching poverty and five children that I don't know how to put the bread in their mouths; and this minute I'm as lonesome as a widow, for my husband is off and away in the country, and here am I in Dublin; and if I know how to get bit or sup for them it's as much as I do know."

But the old woman shook her head till her teeth rattled.

"Let you be easy and take what's coming. I see you sitting in a king's house, and the walls all gilded gold, and the carpets like moss that your foot would sink into, and riches and grandeur, and everyone bowing down to the mother of the beauties."

"Well, if the half of it's true," says the lady, "the first news should come to me is that I'm a widow; for 'tis impossible it should happen as you say with a husband that hasn't one penny-piece to rattle on a tombstone."

"You'll not be a widow for many a day, and 'tis your husband's name brings the luck."

"You don't know what his name is. You couldn't If you'll tell me his name, I'll engage to believe any mortal thing you tell me."

So the three looked at the old woman; but she took another look at the hand as she might be reading a book, and:--

"Good-day to you, Mrs Gunning, and good-day to his Lords.h.i.+p's daughter,-- my Lord Mayo,--and good-day to the mother of the two beauties that'll sweep the world."

And she clucked and chuckled to herself, highly diverted with their astonishment. How did she know it? What that old woman did not know would make but a short story. 'T was said she had informants over the whole countryside, like a Minister of the Crown.

They stared, for they were new come to Dublin, running from their debts in Roscommon and taking the chance to pick up husbands in the city, and there was not one there who knew them.

So she took the youngest girl's hand in hers and says she:--

"You'll marry the highest man, bar one or two, in England. And you'll not be content with that; for when you bury him, you'll marry the highest man in Scotland; and if I sat here till tomorrow, I couldn't tell you the half of the riches and glory that's waiting for you. You'll have to crawl through the black mud to get the first; but after that 'tis a clear course, and the mud won't stick to a d.u.c.h.ess's gown, young Miss Elizabeth Gunning!"

A d.u.c.h.ess! Elizabeth's eyes were like winter stars, they so sparkled--they would put out the light of diamonds. She held herself like a young poplar and says she:--

"And if you're right, old woman, or anything like it, I'll come and see you when I get promotion, and my Lord Duke shall fill your pockets with gold."

But Mother Corrigan grinned like a dog.

"I haven't a pocket, my Lady's Honour. My hand's good enough; but I'll not be here when you come riding back to poor old Dublin in yer coach and six --and now for the fairy of the world!"--And she took the hand of the eldest, who was shaking like a leaf and expecting to hear of a prince and his blue ribbon at the least, and her eyes fixed on the old witch like two blue lakes with the stars dipping in them.

But she shook her head.

"A great man, but not so big a man as your sister's." (The girl looked jealous daggers at Elizabeth.) "A fine man, and the gold lace on him, and velvet and silk stockings, and gold buckles s.h.i.+ning in the shoes of him, and a big house to live in, and fine clothes for your back, and--"

She stopped dead, like a horse pulled up on his haunches; but the young Maria twitched her by the raggedy sleeve.

"Go on. What is it? I want to hear."

"Don't ask me, and you so beautiful!"

"I do ask, and I'll have it out of you. I suppose you mean I'll get old and ugly like yourself."