The Amazing Marriage | Page 3

the horrid creatures who write with a wink at
you, which sets the wicked part of us on fire: I have known it myself,
and I own it to my shame; and if I happened to be ignorant of the
history of Countess Fanny, I could not refute his wantonness. He has
just the same benevolent leer for a bishop. Give me, if we are to make a
choice, the beggar's breech for decency, I say: I like it vastly in
preference to a Nymney, who leads you up to the curtain and agitates it,
and bids you to retire on tiptoe. You cannot help being angry with the
man for both reasons. But he is the writer society delights in, to show
what it is composed of. A man brazen enough to declare that he could
hold us in suspense about the adventures of a broomstick, with the aid
of a yashmak and an ankle, may know the world; you had better not
know him--that is my remark; and do not trust him.
He tells the story of the Old Buccaneer in fear of the public, for it was
general property, but of course he finishes with a Nymney touch: 'So

the Old Buccaneer is the doubloon she takes in exchange for a handful
of silver pieces.' There is no such handful to exchange--not of the kind
he sickeningly nudges at you. I will prove to you it was not Countess
Fanny's naughtiness, though she was indeed very blamable. Women
should walk in armour as if they were born to it; for these cold sneerers
will never waste their darts on cuirasses. An independent brave young
creature, exposing herself thoughtlessly in her reckless innocence, is
the victim for them. They will bring all society down on her with one
of their explosive sly words appearing so careless, the cowards. I say
without hesitation, her conduct with regard to Kirby, the Old Buccaneer,
as he was called, however indefensible in itself, warrants her at heart an
innocent young woman, much to be pitied. Only to think of her, I could
sometimes drop into a chair for a good cry. And of him too! and their
daughter Carinthia Jane was the pair of them, as to that, and so was
Chillon John, the son.
Those critics quoting Nymney should look at the portrait of her in the
Long Saloon of Cresset Castle, where she stands in blue and white,
completely dressed, near a table supporting a couple of holster pistols,
and then let them ask themselves whether they would speak of her so if
her little hand could move.
Well, and so the tale of her swim across the Shannon river and back
drove the young Earl of Cresset straight over to Ireland to propose for
her, he saying; that she was the girl to suit his book; not allowing her
time to think of how much he might be the man to suit hers. The
marriage was what is called a good one: both full of frolic, and he
wealthy and rather handsome, and she quite lovely and spirited.
No wonder the whole town was very soon agog about the couple, until
at the end of a year people began to talk of them separately, she going
her way, and he his. She could not always be on the top of a coach,
which was his throne of happiness.
Plenty of stories are current still of his fame as a four-in-hand
coachman. They say he once drove an Emperor and a King, a Prince
Chancellor and a pair of Field Marshals, and some ladies of the day,
from the metropolis to Richmond Hill in fifty or sixty odd minutes,

having the ground cleared all the way by bell and summons, and only a
donkey-cart and man, and a deaf old woman, to pay for; and went, as
you can imagine, at such a tearing gallop, that those Grand Highnesses
had to hold on for their lives and lost their hats along the road; and a
publican at Kew exhibits one above his bar to the present hour. And
Countess Fanny was up among them, they say. She was equal to it. And
some say, that was the occasion of her meeting the Old Buccaneer.
She met him at Richmond in Surrey we know for certain. It was on
Richmond Hill, where the old King met his Lass. They say Countess
Fanny was parading the hill to behold the splendid view, always
admired so much by foreigners, with their Achs and Hechs! and
surrounded by her crowned courtiers in frogged uniforms and
moustachioed like sea-horses, a little before dinner time, when Kirby
passed her, and the Emperor made a remark on him, for Kirby was a
magnificent figure of a man, and used