The Happy Hypocrite, page 4
But, as he turned to go, Jenny laid her hands upon his wrists and besought him that he would look at her. “For indeed,” she said, “I am bewildered by your strange words. Why did you woo me under a mask? And why do you imagine I could love you less dearly, seeing your own face?”
He looked into her eyes. On their violet surface he saw the tiny reflection of his own face. He was filled with joy and wonder.
“Surely,” said Jenny, “your face is even dearer to me, even fairer, than the semblance that hid it and deceived me. I am not angry. ‘Twas well that you veiled from me the full glory of your face, for indeed I was not worthy to behold it too soon. But I am your wife now. Let me look always at your own face. Let the time of my probation be over. Kiss me with your own lips.”
So he took her in his arms, as though she had been a little child, and kissed her with his own lips. She put her arms round his neck, and he was happier than he had ever been. They were alone in the garden now. Nor lay the mask any longer upon the lawn, for the sun had melted it.
[1] Lord Coleraine’s Correspondence, page 101.
[2] Contemporary Bucks, vol. i, page 73.
[3] It would seem, however, that, on special occasions, his Lordship indulged in odd costumes. “I have seen him,” says Captain Tarleton (vol. i, p. 69), “attired as a French clown, as a sailor, or in the crimson hose of a Sicilian grandee—peu beau spectacle. He never disguised his face, whatever his costume, however.”
[4] I would refer my little readers once more to the pages of Contemporary Bucks, where Captain Tarleton speculates upon the sudden disappearance of Lord George Hell and describes its effect on the town. “Not even the shrewdest,” says he, “even gave a guess that would throw a ray of revealing light on the disparition of this profligate man. It was supposed that he carried off with him a little dancer from Garble’s, at which haunt of pleasantry he was certainly on the night he vanished, and whither the young lady never returned again. Garble declared he had been compensated for her perfidy, but that he was sure she had not succumbed to his Lordship, having in fact rejected him soundly. Did his Lordship, say the cronies, take his life—and hers? Il n’y a pas d’épreuve. The most astonishing matter is that the runaway should have written out a complete will, restoring all money he had won at cards, etc. etc. This certainly corroborates the opinion that he was seized with a sudden repentance and fled over the seas to a foreign monastery, where he died at last in religious silence. That’s as it may, but many a spendthrift found his pocket clinking with guineas, a not unpleasant sound, I declare. The Regent himself was benefited by the odd will, and old Sir Follard Follard found himself once more in the ancestral home he had forfeited. As for Lord George’s mansion in St. James’s Square, that was sold with all its appurtenances, and the money fetched by the sale, no bagatelle, was given to various good objects, according to my Lord’s stated wishes. Well, many of us blessed his name—we had cursed it often enough. Peace to his ashes, in whatever urn they may be resting, on the billows of whatever ocean they float!”
Max Beerbohm, The Happy Hypocrite
