AN UGLY DUCKLING

Southland Times, Issue 18819, 12 May 1920, Page 2

AN UGLY DUCKLING

WOMAN WHO FASCINATED ALL EUROPE.

THE “GORGEOUS LADY BLESSINGTON.’'

Marguerite, “the Gorgeous Lady Blessington,” was the second daughter of Squire Power, of Knockbritt, in county Tipperary, the “ugly duckling” of a goodlooking family. As has happened to other “ugly ducklings,” she developed a beauty which promised to throw that of her two sisters completely into eclipse, and the local squireens began to flock around her like moths around a candle-flame. She was still heart-free when Captain Farmer, a man as old as her father and notorious for his loose living and vile temper, entered the lists; and she scon found that she was to have no voice in the matter. THE BIGGEST SCOUNDREL IN TIPPERARY. To all Marguerite’s tears and protesta-' tions—“l hate him! and I would rather die a hundred times than marry him!”— her father was adamant; and thus it was that, tearful, indignant, protesting to the last, the girl was led to the altar by the biggest scoundrel in Tipperary. Then for Marguerite followed a few months of an inferno worse than she had dreaded. Almost before her honeymoon had waned her husband revealed himself in his true character of bully and tyrant. So horrible was her life that, when her husband was ordered to a distant station, she refused point-blank to accompany him; and, afraid to return to her own home and her father’s reproaches, she decided to shake the dust of Ireland off her feet and seek a refuge in England, where for a dozen years the curtain falls on Power’s daughter. END OF A TRAGIC UNION. Whatever may have been her life during this period of obscurity—there are, indeed, hints, for which there seems to be no authority, that it would not bear too close a scrutiny—we know that at its close she ■was moving in good circles in London, and was as irreproachable as she was lovely, in the full maturity of her beauty. Of her rascally husband she had happily seen nothing during all these years of more or less lonely adventure; and the end of this tragic union was now near. One day in October, 1817, the Captain ended his misspent days in tragedy. He had drifted through dissipation and crime to the King’s Bench prison; and in a fit of frenzy or, as some say, in a drunken quarrel had flung himself to bis death through a window of his gaol. THE COUNTESS BLESSINGTON. Thus at last the nightmare that had clouded the young life of the squireen’s daughter was over; and she was free to plan her future as she would. What this future was to be was soon placed beyond doubt. The widowed Earl of Blessington had long been among the most ardent admirers of the lovely Irishwoman; and before Farmer had been many months in his prison-grave, he had won her consent to be his countess. Loro Blessington was a veritable Croesus among Irish landlords, with a rent-roll of £30,000 a year, allied, it is true, to an extravagance more than commensurate with his revenue. When vhe Earl took his bride to his ancestral home, Montjoy Forest, she revelled in her boudoir, with its hangings of “crimson Genoa silk-velvet, trimmed with gold bullion fringe; and all the furniture of equal richness.” But she had had enough of Irish life in the days of her childhood, and soon sighed to return to London and to a wider sphere for her beauty and her social ambition; and before sh\ had been a bride six months we find her installed in St. James’s Square, drawing to her salon all the greatest and most famous in the land, and moving her courtiers with the dignity and graciousness of a queen. CONQUERING NEW WORIJ3S. But even London was too limited a sphere for such a queendom as was hers. She yearned, woman-like, for new worlds to conquer, and one day in 1822 she and her lord set out on a progress through Europe, with a retinue of attendants and with luxurious equipages such as any queen might envy. And when, in France, her retinue was joineed by Count d’Orsay her cup of conquest was full; fcf the youthful count was the “Admirable Crichton” of Europe--“the beau-ideal of manly beauty, dignity, and grace,” with a brilliant mind to match a light heart, and an irresistible charm of manner. He was the best fencer, dancer, swimmer, runner, and dresser; the best shot, the best horseman and the best draughtsman of his age. And from the first moment of meeting, this epitome of all human perfections was my lady's veriest slave. A TOUR OF TRIUMPH. Probably never has u woman drunk deeper of the cup of pleasure and triumph than Lady Blessington during her tour of Europe, received and feted as a queen at very stage of her progress. We catch glimpses of her at Genoa, with Byron at her feet, pouring sweet flatteries into her ears; and installed in the gorgeous Palazzo Belvedere at Naples, a palace of “Arabian Nights” beauty. Then to Florence, to Rome, and Genoa again, each stage of her journeying more splendid and triumphant than its predecessor. And so back to England by way of Paris, where for a time she queened it in Marshal Ney’s palace, whose magnificence she has described so eloquently for us. Before, however, she had been in Eng land many months there came a sudden

end to her reign of splendour with the death of her indulgent lord and the discovery that his enormous fortune was exhausted by his prodigality for her sake. A FORTUNE BY HER PEN. But her ladyship was not the woman to shed tears over a mere loss of money. She had her jointure of £2OO a year, and this she was soon able to double by means of her clever pen, in which she found a small mine of welcome gold. Her “Books of Beauty” and “Gems of Beauty” were an instantaneous success. Her “Conversations with Byron” and her novels and gossipybooks of travel were hailed in succession ,by an eager public of readers; and the gold they brought enabled her to maintain much of the splendid environment to which she had become so accustomed. Even her literary children were cradled in luxury, on a fauteuil of yellow satin, in a library crowded with sumptuous cushions and ottomans, enamelled tables and statuary, in the house of Seamore Place to which her beauty and fame drew the' most eminent men in England—from Lawrence and Lyndhurst to Lytton and young Disraeli, gorgeous as his hostess, in gold-flowered waistcoat, gold rings and chains, white stick with biack tassel, and his shower of ringlets. MORE TRIUMPHS. But the Seamore Place house proved too cabined and too modest for my lady’s exacting social ambition; and we soon find her installed at Gore House, in Kensington, a stately house, surrounded by beautiful gardens and a girdle of spreading trees, as shut off from the world as if it were in the heart of the country. Here for thirteen years, with the handsome, gay, accomplished d’Orsay as lieutenant, she dispensed a princely hospitality. Her dinners and her entertainments were admittedly the finest in London ; and the invitations to them were as eagerly sought as commands to a Court ball. And of all the great ones who sat at her dinner table or thronged her drawing room, not one was wittier or more fascinating than Count d’Orsay, who, in spite of envious and malicious tongues, never occupied to the Countess any other relation than that of a dearly-loved and devoted son. DISASTER AND DEATH. Although Lady Blessington’s income rar®ly fell below £4OOO a year, it was quite inadequate to her expenditure; and it was clear to her that this era of splendid hospitality could not last for ever. The climax came when, no longer’ able to appease her clamorous army of creditors she was obliged to leave her possessions to the tender mercies of a sheriff’s officer, while she and d’Orsay, her still loyal and adoring shadow, fled to Paris. This crushing blow to her fortunes and her pride no doubt broke Lady Blessington’s heart; for within a few weeks of the last fall of the auctioneer’s hammer she died suddenly in Paris, to the unspeakable grief of d’Orsay.