The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, Volumes One and Two: Written by HerselfWilson, Harriette
General
The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson, Volumes One and Two: Written by Herself
Wilson, Harriette
Courtesans -- Great Britain -- Biography; Wilson, Harriette, 1786-1846
Lord Worcester informed me that he, the Duc de Guiche, and----but, as
I am not certain, I will not name the third, had sentenced the man to
receive five hundred lashes!
"And what says Colonel Quintin?" I asked eagerly.
"I have just seen the colonel," answered Worcester, "and acquainted him
with the sentence."
"Well," I exclaimed in much anxiety.
"Why, Colonel Quintin has astonished us all, by declaring that he should
not inflict one quarter of the sentence pronounced by the court-martial
against the young soldier."
"What reason did he give?"
"Merely," answered Worcester, "that the man was young in the first
place, and, in the second, that he hated the system of flogging
altogether, believing it to be a punishment most of all calculated to
harden the men."
"I will forgive Colonel Quintin his dislike of me for that one
sentiment," said I.
In order to quiet the anxiety of the Duke of Beaufort, I absolutely
insisted on Lord Worcester going occasionally into society; but, when he
did comply with my earnest desire to this effect, he always left me with
the reluctance of a school-boy, on setting off to his dull, dry, daily
school.
One day, when Worcester dined with Lord Charles Somerset, he said
that several carriages would be passing my door on their way from his
uncle's, so that he should not require any equipage of his own to return
in. It was a rainy, wretched night, and I was greatly surprised when
Worcester, in his full dress regimentals, without a cloak or a great
coat, came home on foot absolutely wet to the skin!
"Lady Aldborough offered me a seat in her barouche," said Worcester,
"and we were altogether six, just about to drive from the door, when
that widow, Lady Emily ----, I forget her other name, who, everybody
says, is dying for a husband, begged that we would make room for her
too, and she got into the coach without waiting for an answer. 'I must
not crowd you all,' said her ladyship; 'indeed I prefer sitting on Lord
Worcester's knee, to putting the ladies to the least inconvenience.'"
Worcester's virtue having taken the alarm, he insisted on its being
quite impossible for him to intrude an instant longer, and rather than
submit to such contamination as to consent that a fine woman should
sit on his knee, he preferred submitting his best and gayest uniform
to the pelting storm; for which want of gallantry he was rated by Lady
Aldborough for the next fortnight.
We continued some time longer at Brighton. The duke appeared somewhat
appeased at learning that Worcester went a little more into Society;
perhaps, from an idea that he was growing tired of me, or, may be, he
had discovered that mild measures had most effect on his son.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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