Lady Clarke’s
health was not strong enough to bear the journey to Baron’s Court at such an
inclement period of the year, and Miss Owenson had to go
back and encounter her fate alone. In narrating this part of her history, she admitted that
she felt rather doubtful of her reception. The carriage was in waiting for her; but quite
empty. On her arrival, the Marquis was stately, and the
Marchioness stiff, in their welcome; but Sir Charles, who had been knighted by the Lord Lieutenant, was too enchanted by her return to be able
to recollect that he had ever been displeased, and in the course of a quarter of an hour,
she quite convinced him that he had been in the wrong, altogether, and that her own conduct
had been, not only right, but admirable. She was soon reinstated in all her former favour.
The following letter from Miss Butler to
Lady Clarke shows how matters stood ten days afterwards. It was an
act of courtesy on the part of his Grace the Duke of Richmond to
Lord Abercorn to
| LADY MORGAN. | 527 |
The vice-regal party are here, and are all running after the grouse, at this moment. The Duke is to make Dr. Morgan (of the Linnean Society, and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London) a Knight. The ceremony is to take place in a few hours. The coquette has behaved very well, for these ten days past; she really seems now attached to him. She is afraid Lady Asgill has quizzed Sir Charles Morgan to you; for a reason Miss Owenson has, she thinks every body would rather have the mate. He is in as great a frenzy as ever about her. He left me, last night most suddenly, in the midst of an Italian duett, before the whole Court, to go and listen to what his love said to Mr. Parkhurst. I was rather offended at being so publicly disgraced and deserted, considering that he thinks me the first of women, and that I have great capabilities. However, I must tell you, Glorvina is minding her P. P. P.’s and Q. Q. Q’s.
| 528 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
Lady Morgan used to tell, very comically, of her dismay at finding herself fairly caught in the toils. Any romance she had felt about Sir Charles, was frightened out of her for the time being, and she said she would have given anything to be able to run away again. Neither was much delay accorded to her. On a cold morning in January, she was sitting in the library, by the fire, in her morning wrapper, when Lady Abercorn opened the door, and said, “Glorvina, come up stairs directly, and be married; there must be no more trifling!”
Her ladyship took Miss Owenson’s arm, and led her up stairs into her dressing-room, where a table was arranged for the ceremony—the family chaplain, standing in full canonicals, with his book open, and Sir Charles ready to receive her. There was no escape left. The ceremony proceeded, and the Wild Irish Girl was married past redemption.
The event had at last come upon her by surprise. No one of the many visitors in the house knew of it coming on thus suddenly; nor was the fact itself announced till some days afterwards, when Lord Abercorn, after dinner, filled his glass and drank to the health of “Sir Charles and Lady Morgan.”
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