The Duchess

  Georgiana’s friends accepted Bess’s permanent presence, particularly Harriet, who, unlike the rest of the family, knew how much Georgiana relied on her. Bess was too clever to try to alienate Georgiana from her sister. Very early on she had made it clear to Harriet that her relationship with Georgiana was safe and, in return, Harriet had given Bess her tacit approval. Bess’s connection with Devonshire House elevated her status in London society; her name even began to appear in the social columns, although sporadically and almost always behind Georgiana’s. When Georgiana returned to London for the season (that part of the Duke’s conditions having been forgotten) Bess never left her side. In her letters Georgiana always prefixed her descriptions with “we”: “Monday we supp’d at Lady Beauchamp’s—Tuesday the opera and my party, and yesterday we breakfasted at Carlton House and in the evening Ly Lucan’s, Ranelagh and a supper at D’Adhémar’s—tonight [another] ball, and tomorrow Ly Hopetoun’s . . .”21 Such was the gaiety of Whig society that there was considerable mirth when on June 1, 1787, George III issued a royal proclamation on the suppression of vice and the encouragement of virtue.22

  Seeing Bess so contented with the Duke, however, made Georgiana long for something similar for herself. The Duke of Dorset could not fulfil her wish. He was in Paris most of the time and they had to be content with writing to each other several times a week. Nor was she deeply in love with him, although the relationship served a purpose. Since the Whigs engaged in only intermittent action during this time, with Dorset’s encouragement Georgiana became more involved in French court politics. In one letter he asked her to contact “Argus” (Sheridan): he wanted him to place some favourable articles about the Little Po, who was the victim of a whispering campaign by the Princesse de Lamballe, in the Courier de l’Europe. Her efforts did not go unnoticed: Daniel Pultney reported to the Duke of Rutland, “Amongst the news of last week was Madame Polignac’s disgrace with the Queen of France and expected arrival in England to form a female treaty of opposition, I suppose, with the Duchess of Devonshire.”23 When the Polignacs arrived in the late spring Georgiana arranged an uninterrupted programme of public events, attended by cabinet ministers as well as Whigs, to enhance their reputation in France. She almost certainly wrote to the Queen on the Little Po’s behalf as well, but the letters did not survive the revolution.

  Dorset flattered Georgiana by his frankness in confiding to her his real views on the French situation. When the Finance Minister, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, and the Director-General of Finance, Jacques Necker, were dismissed in April 1787, Dorset described it as a disaster for France’s stability. He blamed their dismissal on Marie Antoinette’s pride. “You will have heard of Necker and Calonne’s banishment,” he wrote: “what a horrid government (between friends) this is . . . jugés quel empire a Mrs B [Marie Antoinette] sur l’ésprit de son mari:* she felt her power and influence in danger and got rid of her rival dans un clin d’oeil [in no time at all].”24 This sort of intimate friendship combined with behind-the-scenes politics was irresistible to Georgiana. She couldn’t help succumbing to Dorset’s charm even though she knew he was manipulative and vain. He is “the most dangerous of men,” she had written before the affair. “For with that beauty of his he is so unaffected and has a simplicity and persuasion in his manner that makes one account very easily for the number of women he has had in love with him.”* Horace Walpole despised him: “amorous and pleasing in his figure. . . . the French could not desire a man more qualified to be a dupe.”25

  Lady Spencer was so frightened that she would lose one or both her daughters to a scandalous elopement that she detected clandestine meetings in the most innocent situations. “I suppose you mean Wyndham and the D of Dorset,” Georgiana replied impatiently to her accusing letters. “The first is hunting and would not see her if here, the other is at Paris.”26 But it was not only Lady Spencer who feared Georgiana’s involvement with such a dangerous flirt. Lady Melbourne added her voice, reminding Georgiana that Dorset’s indiscreet comments about his affair with Lady Derby had made her situation so impossible that elopement had been her only choice. Lady Melbourne’s warning was strong enough to make Georgiana consider breaking off their affair. “The Pride [the Duke of Dorset] does come,” she admitted to Lady Melbourne. “I could not help it, but my mother, who knows of it now is prepared to care he should have nothing to tell; however, independent of her case and she is quite right, I will and would have been upon my guard.”27 Yet, as with her gambling, Georgiana’s words did not match her actions.

  CHAPTER 12

  MÉNAGE À TROIS

  1788

  The Gallery of the Graces has no small acquisition in the beautiful portraits of the Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Duncannon, and Lady Elizabeth Foster.

  Morning Post, March 29, 1788

  Bess chose to remain in London for the summer while the Devonshires went ahead to Chatsworth. Lady Spencer took advantage of her absence to remain with them until mid-October. The Duke of Dorset was in Paris, and for once Lady Spencer found little to criticize during her stay. She reported to George that Georgiana was “much calmer and better” than last year, and there was no repeat of her “nervous symptoms.” But it galled her to think that Bess was in London, waiting for her to leave: “I think she will measure her time by mine,” she wrote.11 In this she was mistaken; there was another reason for Bess’s delay:

  The Duke of Richmond is so in love with Ly Elizabeth Foster [wrote Lady Augusta Murray spitefully], that they say he has made a ridiculous figure of himself, and it is due to his infatuation that Lord Hervey owes his new employment. The Duke of Devonshire is now less smitten. Lady Spencer est trés en colère, and Lady Jersey says she does not see why such a trifle can put her Dowagership in such a passion when she herself had Lord Harcourt and Lord Jersey at one time.2

  The remorse Bess had once expressed in her journal over the Duke of Dorset (“How could I bear to let the D. of Dorset be attach’d to me, to think me virtuous! I shall write to tell him I don’t deserve his love”)3 had not prevented her from making the Duke of Richmond fall in love with her. He was an ideal choice—a sort of insurance policy. He was middle-aged, childless, and lived a separate life from the Duchess, whose health was poor. He also had contacts in the government, and Bess’s brother, Lord Hervey, needed some form of employment before his creditors had him arrested. The Duke of Richmond lobbied Pitt on his behalf for the vacant ambassadorship to Florence, and as soon as he heard of his success wrote immediately to Devonshire House to give Bess the news. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, and she certainly knew how to make use of him.

  Since Bess’s recent triumph was known to everyone, guests at Chatsworth were surprised by her subdued demeanour when she arrived at the end of October. Normally she took Sheridan’s arch comments about her charming attachment to the Duke of Devonshire in good part, but she showed her irritation on this occasion. When they were alone she confronted the Duke, who “hardly knew the ill I had hinted to him, and asked me if it was really so. I confirmed it.” She was pregnant again. “We regret this new anxiety,” Bess wrote in her diary: “But I felt a kind of pleasure that supported me. How kind he was to me, how soothing and endearing!”4 Once again she glossed over several important details. The Duke was aware of her friendship with the Duke of Richmond, although she swore to him it was innocent. Naturally, she insisted the baby could not possibly be Richmond’s, but the Duke’s indifferent attitude towards the child suggests that he never wholly believed her. This time the lovers told Georgiana immediately. Her reaction was typical of what Bess had come to expect: she insisted on accompanying Bess to France in order to assist her when she went into labour. No doubt her desire to be with Bess was compounded by the prospect of seeing Dorset in Paris, but Georgiana’s devotion was none the less real. There was no question that she loved her friend and infinitely preferred her company to the Duke’s.

  When Lady Spencer heard that Georgiana was taking Bess abroad for her health, she as
sumed correctly that Bess was pregnant but also that the Duke had ordered his wife to take care of his mistress during her confinement. Georgiana’s assurance that she had no motive for going other than seeing her friends made her more suspicious. She accused her daughter of going to Paris with the intention of taking up with the Duke of Dorset and would not listen to her protestations. “Nothing can exceed [Georgiana and Harriet’s] affectionate care and attention to me,” she wrote to George. “But art has greatly lessened if not entirely deprived me of that unreserved confidence which could alone make my advice be of use to them—I cannot love them less, and loving them as I do I cannot be happy about them.”5 Georgiana reluctantly acquiesced to her order to remain in England: “Since it is disagreeable to you, however anxious I was, and desirable as it seemed to be in many circumstances, I will not go,” she wrote. “I give you my word that I shall not go unless by any alteration the Duke has it in his power to come too, for all the time; which I am afraid is not likely. . . . I see your reason Dst M; but I was in hopes my not going near Paris would have prevented your apprehension.”6

  Lady Spencer held Bess responsible for her estrangement with Georgiana, but her continual criticizing and interfering were as much the cause. She had become less confident since her widowhood. Just before her visit to Chatsworth she had tried to attend a small party of Harriet’s and was forced to abandon the attempt: “I got to the house but was seized with such a foolish panic and tremor that I could not go in,” she told George. “I really begin to fear I shall never go into company again.”7 She compensated for her reclusiveness by becoming ever more inquisitive and censorious with her daughters. Her hectoring letters made communication a duty rather than a pleasure. “I hope you will be comfortable at Chatsworth because I hope you will see me conduct myself with prudence,” Georgiana had written in anticipation of her mother’s visit. “Tho’ there will I dare say in the course of your stay be many men, and some you may not like, yet I had rather you shd see me behave well with opportunity of doing otherwise than only from having nobody to flirt with.”8

  “I don’t know how I shall be able to bear my parting with Bess,” Georgiana wrote on February 10, 1788. The Devonshires accompanied Bess to Dover and stood on the quayside while her luggage was loaded on to the packet. “Oh it was bitterness to lose her,” admitted Bess in her diary, “but him—his last embrace—his last look drew my soul after him. . . . I see him—he is fixed in my heart—this guilty heart—Oh, why could I not love him without crime? Why cannot I be his without sin?”9 After eighteen months of a fantasy life she was abruptly reduced to her ordinary state: Lady Elizabeth Foster, grafter, courtesan, and destitute wife of an Irish MP. This time, however, she could rely on Georgiana to make up for the Duke’s previous indolence over arrangements for the birth. She travelled through France with the faithful Louis and her maidservant Lucille until she reached Rouen on May 15, supposedly having already come to term.

  Instead of the filthy bordello in Vietri there was an apartment “tolerable, but in a close confined street on one part and a stinking court at the other.”10 Nothing happened for almost two weeks. “What will the Duke think?” moaned Bess; “that is the last day I was with him, and did not return till I was above two months gone.”11 Fortunately, she went into labour on the twenty-sixth, just in time for the balance of paternity to remain undecided between the Dukes of Devonshire and Richmond. After three hours she gave birth to a boy whom she called Augustus (despite already having a son with the same name) William James Clifford. She had chosen the names with care: William was his father’s name and Clifford was one of the Cavendish titles. Her affair with Richmond may have made her more anxious to establish the boy’s parentage than with Caroline Rosalie. Clifford, as he was always known, was deposited with another family while Bess collected Caroline from her foster parents. She and the Duke had already decided to send her to Paris to be educated with Charlotte Williams. In her diary Bess confessed to having formed a secret plan to bring Caroline over to England and have her brought up in the nursery with Little Georgiana and Harriet. She did not yet know how she would accomplish this, but she had no doubt she would succeed.

  While Bess was in France Georgiana and the Duke remained in London and entertained on a lavish scale at Devonshire House nearly every night. They were getting on surprisingly well—better, in fact, than for several years. Although Georgiana could not control her gambling, she ensured that they had little to quarrel over by keeping her debts hidden. She tried to compensate the Duke for his loss by giving him the sort of attention he enjoyed from Bess. He, in turn, took Georgiana’s side when Lady Spencer decided that London offered too much temptation and tried to force her to stay at St. Alban’s. “If she was to stay at St Albans for six weeks or two months without any ostensible reason,” finally responded the Duke to Lady Spencer’s insistent letters, “it might make her feel dissatisfied and discontented, as well as give rise to conversations and surmises in the world which would be better avoided.”12 Lady Spencer was so overcome by his concern for his wife that she did not bring up the subject again.

  The day after Clifford’s birth across the Channel Lady Spencer was writing to George about her joy at seeing husband and wife on such good terms with each other: “the entire confidence, the easy good humours and the unaffected regard and tenderness which has been apparent in their whole conduct to each other ever since I have been here, make me but grieve the more that they ever live any other life than they now do.”13 She was disappointed to hear that they were planning to go to France in the summer to meet Bess. But she was mistaken if she hoped for any rekindling of love between them—neither would ever be in love with the other. “Dr Bess, I know you are safe and therefore not hurt,” Georgiana wrote; “always write to him if you have not time for both.”14

  Bess pressed them to come to France, but there were obstacles to their leaving. Friends assumed that they were delaying their trip because of a serious theft in Devonshire House committed by the son of one of their most trusted servants. The truth was that they suspected Duncannon of attempting to poison Harriet. It was almost certainly fear rather than malice which guided his actions; he was trying to subjugate his wife rather than kill her. This was the verdict of Mrs. Damer, who wrote much later: “She once, I know, did suffer, and took those terrible medicines but it was some years passed. Her husband, doubting not that it was owing to his conduct, and the vile company he kept, used to carry her the medicines, and being ashamed and wishing to screen himself, endangered her life by preventing her from having proper advice.”15 It was not until he put Harriet’s life in danger and the doctors had to be called out in an emergency that Duncannon’s actions were exposed. He stopped feeding her drugs but the Devonshires took the precaution of putting off their visit to France until the spring.

  The Duke of Dorset was extremely irritated, having gone to considerable lengths to rent a summer house for them and to arrange his leave to coincide with their visit. “The state of affairs here will not admit of my absence,” he replied when Georgiana suggested he come to England. “Things now grow serious, and I hope they now feel the effects of promoting and abetting rebellion in other countries* they have learnt the people to fight for their liberties. . . . I am exceedingly concerned for Mr and Mrs B. [the King and Queen]. The latter is amazingly out of spirits.”16 It was late summer when he managed to visit England and by this time Georgiana’s feelings had already altered. The shock turned the urbane diplomat into a sad, pleading figure. Concerned that his obvious distress would create a scandal, Lady Melbourne advised Georgiana to allow him hope. But she refused.

  however good and wise your arguments are, they are not stronger than my own heart suggests to me—and I wish fairly and honestly to make you read it as I do myself. When the Duke of Dorset returned, he express’d great misery at the idea of my having, without any cause of his side, spoken to him in an angry and harsh manner, especially as he was ready to give up every wish to mine, to be contented with
seeing me and being on a friendly footing with me—he was particularly shocked at the idea of my forbidding him Chatsworth, at the time when he gave up to me what he said was the greatest sacrifice a man could make me—he has kept within the rules I laid down nearly tho’ not quite, he has come to be sure twice a day, but that is already broke thru since he stays at Windsor to night because I told him not to come here—I was in spirits last night because I was in hopes it wd go on so, without any further bustle till the time of his return. . . . So far I had wrote on Wednesday. Today is Saturday—tho’ I was silent I have done wonders—I have told him I do not prefer him—I have convinced him of it and he really seems desirous of keeping on some terms with me—I am sure of myself—he goes tomorrow and will not come this fortnight. . . . I think just the same of my own folly.17