Terribly Intimate Portraits Part 2

You all know of her journey to Paris, and her mockery of a trial before the tribunal--her pitiful bravery when the inhuman monsters tried to make her say "_a la lanterne!_" Nothing would induce her to--she had the firmness of many ancestors behind her.

We will quote Ben-Hepple's vivid description of her execution:--

"The day dawned grey with heavy clouds to the east," he says. "About five minutes past ten, a few rain-drops fell. The tumbrils were already rattling along amidst the frenzied jeers of the crowd. The first one contained a group of _ci-devant_ aristos, laughing and singing--one elderly vicomtesse was playing on a mouth-organ. In the second tumbril sat two women--one, Marie Topinambour, a poor dancer, was weeping; the other, Julie de p.o.o.pinac, was playing at cat's cradles. Her dress was of sprigged muslin, and she wore a rather battered Dolly Varden hat. She was haughtily impervious to the vile epithets of this mob. Upon reaching the guillotine, Marie Topinambour became panic-stricken, and swarmed up one of the posts before any one could stop her. In bell-like tones, Julie bade her descend. 'Fear nothing, _ma pet.i.te_,' she cried. 'See, I am smiling!' The terrified Marie looked down and was at once calmed.

Julie was indeed smiling. One or two marquises who were waiting their turn were in hysterics. Marie slowly descended, and was quickly executed. Then Julie stepped forward. '_Vive le Roi!_' she cried, forgetting in her excitement that he was already dead, and flinging her Dolly Varden hat in the very teeth of the crowd, she laid her head in the prescribed notch. A woman in the mob said '_Pauvre_' and somebody else said '_a bas!_' The knife fell...."

MADCAP MOLL

EIGHTH d.u.c.h.eSS OF WAPPING

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE d.u.c.h.eSS OF WAPPING

_From the world-famous portrait by Sir Oswald Cronk, Bart._]

n.o.body who knew George I. could help loving him--he possessed that peculiar charm of manner which had the effect of subjugating all who came near him into immediate slavery. Madcap Moll--his true love, his one love (England still resounds with her gay laugh)--adored him with such devotion as falls to the lot of few men, be they kings or beggars.

They met first in the New Forest, where Norman Bramp informs us, in his celebrated hunting memoirs "Up and Away," the radiant Juniper spent her wild, unfettered childhood. She was ever a care-free, undisciplined creature, snapping her shapely fingers at bad weather, and riding for preference without a saddle--as hoydenish a girl as one could encounter on a day's march. Her auburn ringlets ablow in the autumn wind, her cheeks whipped to a flush by the breeze's caress, and her eyes sparkling and brimful of tomboyish mischief and roguery! This, then, was the picture that must have met the King's gaze as he rode with a few trusty friends through the forest for his annual week of otter shooting. Upon seeing him, Madcap Moll gave a merry laugh, and crying "Chase me, George!" in provocative tones, she rode swiftly away on her pony. Many of the courtiers trembled at such a daring exhibition of _lese majeste_, but the King, provoked only by her winning smile, tossed his gun to Lord Twirp and set off in hot pursuit. Eventually he caught his roguish quarry by the banks of a sunlit pool. She had flung herself off her mount and flung herself on the trunk of a tree, which she bestrode as though it were a better and more fiery steed. The King cast an appraising glance at her shapely legs, and then tethered his horse to an old oak.

"Are you a creature of the woods?" he said.

Madcap Moll tossed her curls. "Ask me!" she cried derisively.

"I am asking you," replied the King.

"Odds fudge--you have spindleshanks!" cried Madcap Moll irrelevantly.

The King was charmed. He leant towards her.

"One kiss, mistress!" he implored. At that she slapped his face and made his nose bleed. He was captivated.

"I'faith, art a daring girl," he cried delightedly. "Knowest who I am?"

"I care not!" replied the girl.

"George the First!" said the King, rising. Madcap Moll blanched.

"Sire," she murmured, "I did not know--a poor, unwitting country la.s.s--have mercy!"

The King touched her lightly on the nape.

"Get up," he said gently; "you are as loyal and spirited a girl as one could meet in all Hamps.h.i.+re, I'll warrant. Hast a liking for Court?"

"Oh, sire!" answered the girl.

Thus did the King meet her who was to mean everything in his life, and more....

It was twilight in the forest, Raymond Waffle tells us, when the King rode away. In the opposite direction rode a pensive girl, her eyes aglow with something deeper than had ever before illumined their translucency.

Budde Towers, according to Plabbin's "Guide to Hamps.h.i.+re," lay in the heart of the forest. Built in the days of William the Conqueror, 1066, and William Rufus, 1087, by Sir Francis Budde, it had been inhabited by none but Buddes of each successive generation. Madcap Moll's great-grandfather, Lord Edmund Budde,[4] added a tower here and there when he felt inclined, while her uncle Robert Budde--known from Bournemouth to Lyndhurst as Bounding Bob--built the celebrated picture gallery (which can be viewed to this day by genealogical enthusiasts), the family portraits up to then having been stored in the box-room.

Old Earl Budde, Moll's father, was as crusty an old curmudgeon as one could find in a county. His wife (the lovely Evelyn Wormgate, a daughter of the Duke of Bognor and Wormgate) had died while the radiant Moll was but a puling infant. Thus it was that, knowing no hand of motherly authority, the child perforce ran wild throughout her dazzling adolescence.

The trees were her playmates, the twittering of the birds her music--all the wild things of the forest loved her, specially dogs and children.

She knew every woodcutter for miles round by his Christian name. "Why, here's Madcap Moll!" they would say, as the beautiful girl came galloping athwart her mustang, untamed and headstrong as she herself.

This, then, was the priceless jewel which George I., spurred on by an overmastering pa.s.sion, ordered to be transferred from its rough and homely setting to the ornate luxury of life at Court, where he immediately bestowed upon her the t.i.tle of Eighth d.u.c.h.ess of Wapping.

It was about a month after her arrival in London that Sir Oswald Cronk painted his celebrated life-size portrait of her in the costly riding-habit which was one of the many gifts of her royal lover. Sir Oswald, with his amazing technique, has managed to convey that suggestion of determination and resolution, one might almost say obstinacy, lying behind the gay, devil-may-care roguishness of her bewitching glance. Her slim, girlish figure he has portrayed with amazing accuracy, also the beautiful negligent manner in which she invariably carried her hunting-crop; her left hand is lovingly caressing the head of her faithful hound, Roger, who, Raymond Waffle informs us, after his mistress's death refused to bury bones anywhere else but on her grave. Ah me! Would that some of our human friends were as unflagging in their affections as the faithful Roger!

Her reign as morganatic queen was remarkable for several scientific inventions of great utility[5]--notably the "pushfast," a machine designed exclusively for the fixing of leather b.u.t.tons in church ha.s.socks; also Dr. Snaggletooth's cunning device for separating the rind from Camembert cheese without messing the hands! There were in addition to the examples here quoted many minor inventions which, though perhaps not of any individually intrinsic value, went far to ill.u.s.trate Madcap Moll's influence on the progress of the civilisation of her time.

In Raymond Waffle's rather long-winded record of her life he dwells for several chapters upon the Papist plots which menaced her position at Court. After a visit to several of London's museums, I have discovered that most of the facts he quotes are naught but fallacies. There were undoubtedly plots, but nothing in the least Papist. She had her enemies--who has not? But, as far as religion was concerned, Papists, Protestants, Wesleyans, and occasionally Mahommedans, all joined together in unstinting praise of her character and judgment.

Any faults or acts of thoughtlessness committed during her brilliant life were amply compensated for by the supreme deed of loyalty and patriotism which, alas! marked the tragic close of her all too short career. Her ride to Norwich--show me the man whose pulses do not thrill at the mention of that heroic achievement! That wonderful, wonderful ride--that amazing, glorious _tour de force_ which caused her name to be revered and hallowed in every sleepy hamlet and hovel of Old England--her ride to Norwich on Piebald Polly, her thoroughbred mare!

On, on through the night--a fitful moon scrambling aslant the cloud-blown heavens, the wind whistling past her ears, and the tune of "G.o.d Save the King" ringing in her brain, the rhythm set by the convulsive movements of Piebald Polly. On, on, through towns and villages, and then once more the open country--what is that noise? The roaring of water! Torrents are unloosed--the dam has burst! Miller's Leap. Can she do it?--can she?--can she? She can--and has. Dawn shows in the eastern sky--the lights of Norwich--Norwich at last![6]

Poor Moll! the day that dawned as she sped along those weary roads was to prove itself her last. Her exhaustion was so great on reaching the city gates that she fell from Piebald Polly's drooping back and never regained consciousness.

Rumour a.s.serts that the King plunged the country in mourning for several weeks--some say he never smiled again. Madcap Moll, Eighth d.u.c.h.ess of Wapping, left behind her no children, but she left engraved upon the hearts of all who knew her the memory of a beautiful, n.o.ble, and winsome woman.

E. MAXWELL SNURGE

AN INTIMATE STUDY

[Ill.u.s.tration: E. MAXWELL SNURGE, EMINENT POLITICIAN]

I will not seek to write of E. Maxwell Snurge as his friends have written of him, tall, courageous, and vitally intelligent. Nor as his enemies have chronicled him, short, fat and intensely stupid. I will endeavour with a few brief flourishes of the pen, to portray the various intricacies of his character as I see them, clearly and dispa.s.sionately with the eyes of a psychological observer, whose hand is uncorrupted by the bribes of ruthless profiteers, grafters and the like.

It is my desire to convey to the reader the real E. Maxwell Snurge shorn of tawdry trappings of party politics and the illusion and glamour of public idolatry--a man--just a man--but _what_ a man!

To dwell on the widely circulated story of his life would be needless, and to follow his political career, merely futile. What is there left?

you ask. And I answer you with extreme firmness, there is one aspect of E. Maxwell Snurge which has never been seriously a.n.a.lysed--his soul! And it is that and that alone which will be the foundation stone of my structural portrayal of his character.

Why wasn't E. Maxwell Snurge president of the United States? Many have asked that question, he frequently used to ask it himself, and his wife--the sainted Amy Snurge of ever revered memory--would rest her thin, ascetic hand upon his coat sleeve and answer him with yearning sympathy but little satisfaction--Why?

Let us turn to an early episode in his career in our search for the key to the complexities of his mind, an episode slight in itself but well worthy of recording if only for the illumination it throws upon the much questioned motives of his later actions. He was spending a week-end with friends on Long Island--a fis.h.i.+ng week-end. Mrs. Jake Van Opus (formerly the lovely Consuelo Root) out of consideration for her eminent guest and with great tact and charm, immediately he arrived made a point of forbidding politics as a subject for discussion in the house, and confined the general conversation exclusively to fish. That this thoughtful act was appreciated by the overworked politician it is needless to remark; he settled down to his brief respite with a tranquil contentment and complete blankness of mind which only the cleverest of us can a.s.sume at will.

Athletic from birth, Snurge cast his line repeatedly far out to sea with the strength and dogged perseverance which characterised his every deed--but alas, nearly fifteen hours went by before his patience was rewarded. Day had turned to dusk and the sun was setting when he was suddenly jerked from the fis.h.i.+ng stand into the water. With an exultant shout, he clambered on to a rock still clasping his rod--"A Bite, a Bite!" he cried in tones strangely alien from those he customarily employed when addressing a civic conference. "A Bite at last!" Playing his submarine quarry with extraordinary finesse, he eventually, amid laudatory shouts and frantic cheering, landed an exquisitely striped ba.s.s, which lay at his feet gasping, apparently quite exhausted by its struggles to evade captivity. Now comes the point of the story, Snurge surveyed his catch quietly for a few moments--those standing near by noticed sternly repressed tears in his eyes--then he said a thing which come what may will eternally prove him the possessor of unparalleled insight and humanity. Touching the rec.u.mbent fish gently with his foot he sighed deeply--

"This ba.s.s is Democracy," he murmured, "And see what I have done with it!" Superst.i.tious observers state that at this point the ba.s.s closed its eyes wearily, but this may only be a fanatical exaggeration.

Then with a set face he lifted the fish high above his head and flung it back into its native element, thereby undoing the efforts of many hours'