Fanny Read Free

Menagerie of Beasts on whom she lavish’d more than natural Maternal Affection.
    In addition to three Lapdogs and a Parrot, she kept a Marmoset Monkey, two Paroquets of Guinea, four Cockatoos, three Macaws, a dozen scarlet Nightingales from the West Indies, a half-dozen Canaries (both ash and lemon Colour), two dozen or so white and grey Turtledoves from Barbary, and num’rous Milk-white Peacocks that hopp’d freely around the Park. So devoted was she to her Menagerie that e’en upon the rare Occasions when Lord Bellars sent for her to come to London, she declin’d, pleading the Care of her Animals.
    Thus, from my earliest Childhood, I had before me the Example of what a blighted, unloving Marriage could do to a Woman of tender Disposition, and I resolv’d in my Heart ne’er to let become of me what had become of my gentle Step-Mother, who, I sincerely believ’d, was driven half mad by the painful Betrayals practis’d upon her by her Husband.
    Where a less tender Soul would have given Tit for Tat and repaid her Husband’s Amours with Cuckoldry and Back-Talk, Lady Bellars withdrew into her Menagerie, until at last, when she was a white-hair’d old Woman, she spoke more to her Peacocks and Turtledoves than she did to human Visitors.
    Let that be a Lesson to you, I would silently command my Heart as I listen’d to my Step-Mother speaking to her Menagerie; and tho’ I learnt from her the Love of Animals which hath lasted to this Day, I also learnt to be wary of the Male Sex and to view ev’ry handsome Gallant and Man of Pleasure as a likely Robber of my Wits and my Peace of Mind. That Lesson, above all, hath been the Making of whate’er Good Fortune I have enjoy’d upon this Earth.
    I’faith, like Belinda in “The Rape of the Lock” (a Poem which I read and read again thro’out my younger Years), my Guardian Angel taught me one Lesson above all others:
This to disclose is all thy Guardian can.
Beware of all, but most beware of Man!

CHAPTER III
    In which I meet my first Great Man, and learn the Truth of that Maxim: “’Tis easier to be a Great Man in one’s Work than in one’s Life.”
    T HAT LESSON WAS TO be tested soon enough. Thro’out the Peace and Plenty of my Country Childhood, I was told I was growing into a Beauty. I say this out of no Immodesty; i’faith, I scarce believ’d it myself. Like most Young Girls, when I lookt at myself in the Glass, I saw nought but my own grievous Faults; yet was I call’d a Beauty so oft’ that I came to understand the World regarded me thus. ’Twas merely the Condition of my Life that I should set Swains to sighing and Footmen to fondling my Hand longer than need be whilst helping me down from Chariots.
    Just as my Step-Sister, Mary, was stubby and stout, had a Face like a Suet Pudding, and Hair of Mouse Colour, I was, by the perilous Age of Seventeen, straight and tall ( too tall, I thought), with flaming Hair (too russet for my Taste), the brownest of Eyes (would that they were green !), a Bosom blue-white as skimm’d Milk (I minded not the Colour but the Size !), long taper’d Fingers (O my Hands were pretty—I would grant that!), and slender Legs (but who should see ’em ’neath my Petticoats?) ending in clever Feet that could do any complicated Dance whatsoe’er (for all the Good ’twould do me here in the dull Country!). In fact, I was greatly devoted to a Book call’d The Dancing Master , which listed no less than 358 diff’rent Figures and Tunes for Country Dances; and I knew as well how to twirl, flip and flirt a Fan, how to behave most fetchingly at Tea-Table, and how to place Patches to the best advantage upon my oval Cheaks. For all these Things, I was teaz’d and tormented by Daniel and silently hated by Mary, whilst my poor distracted Step-Mother tended to her Animals and seem’d wholly oblivious of the Fact that her three tender Human Charges were no longer little Babes, but were growing to an Age when all the Envies, Vices, and