As Maria and I were not responsible for Mr. Robinson’s debts, we were free to leave the Fleet at any time; but it had been my choice to keep our little family together and reside with my husband in debtors’ prison. Despite the degradation, I was shielded from the temptations of the city as well as from any malicious slanders attendant on my unprotected state. Whither went my husband, however unpleasant, I felt duty-bound to follow, remaining a stainless wife and mother.
Perhaps that’s why this excursion to the duchess was doubly sweet, for it was my first foray outside the prison walls since Tom’s incarceration.
The heavy door thudded shut behind me as I stepped into the street. Every gray uneven cobblestone was suddenly a thing of beauty to me!
Oh, to taste the air beyond the Fleet! Now and again I could make out a patch of blue muscling its way through the miasma, and I wished to be able to kiss it. Someone’s kite soared high into the sky, its tail a knotted strand dressed with bows as colorful and gay as butterflies. As I picked my way along the ruts of Piccadilly on my way to Devonshire House, the trees in the Green Park had never seemed more verdant.
I found the wooden gate within the stone wall that George had mentioned to me, and curtsied to the sentry. “I am Mrs. Robinson, poetess,” I said proudly, mustering as much dignity as I feared my state would allow me. “Her Grace expects me.”
The guard bowed politely and the gate swung open. Before me was a splendidly imposing stone edifice. Behind which of the windows—there must have been a dozen on each of the three stories—sat the young duchess? I wondered what she did with her days. Did she sit at her needlework frame, or compose letters? Did she draw, or practice dancing? I traversed the wide courtyard to the main entrance, where another man, liveried and periwigged, stood stiffly at attention. I stifled a giggle, for with his chest so puffed out he resembled a grand guinea fowl all trussed up for a gentlewoman’s supper.
I reiterated my errand and the popinjay of a servant let me enter. My pen cannot adequately do justice to the opulence that greeted my astounded eyes. The gilt, the frescoes, the statuary, the damasks!
But this majesty and splendor was nothing to the mistress of the manor. I had been shown into the back drawing room, into which I might have trebled the largest of chambers I have ever dwelt in. Here I had not remained long, when the most lovely of women entered the room, her cheeks rosy with the effects of nature displayed by the gentle swelling of her belly. She was carrying my little book of poems, and stopped a few feet from me as if to draw my picture.
“Mrs. Robinson,” said the duchess with the warmest effusiveness. “Let me see if the image matches the verses!” She studied both my figure and my countenance, and sighing, said, “Ah, yes, I can see it; the sadness as well as the sweetness.” A tear of gentle sympathy formed in the corner of her bright blue eye. “And so young! Too young to have encountered so many of fortune’s vicissitudes. A destiny too little proportioned to what I am pleased to term your desert,” she added, as she gestured with my volume toward a gilt sofa. “Fate has not seen fit to reward your merits, madam.”
She then approached me and took me by the hand, leading me to this most sumptuous divan. “We must sit. I find I cannot stand for long in my present condition. It has quite altered my capacity for dancing, too! But—oh, I’m to be a mum! Isn’t it the grandest?” She held my hands and beamed like a little girl about to open the yuletide gift of her fondest dreams. “Your brother tells me that you are a mum as well. And so fond of your little girl! Do tell me all about her, for I love children so!”
To describe the duchess’s look and amiable manner as I gazed upon her that first afternoon would be nigh impracticable. Her eyes shone with intelligence, mildness, and sensibility, and her vivacity, even in repose, was to be wondered at.
“I am ever reluctant to quit my baby’s sight,” I told the duchess. “But as one of us must pay down my husband’s debts somehow, and earn the means as well to pay for our food and lodging at the Fleet—how the devil is a debtor supposed to free himself from his encumbrances where even in the jailhouses one must pay for everything! Since I must leave our quarters to attend to my charwoman’s duties, I have been compelled to engage a girl named Dorcas, one of the cook’s daughters, to look after Maria Elizabeth. Thank heaven Dorcas adores her; in fact, she begged me to leave Maria with her today. What Mr. Robinson has got up to this afternoon, who can say, but then husbands never look after children.”
Her Grace cocked her head sorrowfully. “Husbands,” she sighed. “Children, I believe, must be the only thing that makes the creatures worthwhile.” She smiled, indicating to me that she was at least half in jest. “I have been married for eighteen months, and I have yet to understand mine, and I daresay Canis doesn’t comprehend me in the least. What can one expect, I suppose, of a husband whose pet name evinces his preferences for his dogs? Everyone, of course, said it was a brilliant match; it never occurred to them that I’m as blithe as my husband is boring. He couldn’t give a fig for fashion. But talk to me of sweeter things; talk to me of little Maria Elizabeth.”
I confess that I went into raptures relating an event that had touched my heart beyond measure. Two nights previous I had taken Maria on one of my night walks about
