A courtesan’s little deceit for the sake of propriety

Harriette gives us another fabulous insight into Regency life this week, but before I share it, as usual, here’s the recap for anyone joining the blog today, if you’ve already read it as always, skip to the end of the italics.

In 1825 Harriette Wilson, a courtesan, published a series of stories as her memoirs in a British broad sheet paper. The Regency gentleman’s clubs were a buzz, waiting to see the next names mentioned each week. While barriers had to be set up outside the shop of her publisher, Stockdale, to hold back the disapproving mob.

Harriette was born Harriette Debochet, she chose the name Harriette Wilson as her professional name, in the same way Emma Hart, who I’ve blogged about previously, had changed her name. Unlike Emma, it isn’t known why or when Harriette changed her name.

She was one of nine surviving children. Her father was a watchmaker and her mother a stocking repairer, and both were believed to be from illegitimate origin.

Three of Harriette’s sisters also became courtesans. Amy, Fanny and Sophia (who I have written about before). So the tales I am about to begin in my blogs will include some elements from their lives too.

For a start you’ll need to understand the world of the 19^th Century Courtesan. It was all about show and not just about sex. The idle rich of the upper class aspired to spending time in the company of courtesans, it was fashionable, the thing to do.

You were envied if you were linked to one of the most popular courtesans or you discovered a new unknown beauty to be admired by others.

Courtesans were also part of the competitive nature of the regency period too, gambling was a large element of the life of the idle rich and courtesans were won and lost and bartered and fought for.

So courtesans obviously aspired to be one of the most popular, and to achieve it they learnt how to play music, read widely, so they could debate, and tried to shine in personality too. They wanted to be a favoured ’original’.

The eccentric and outspoken was admired by gentlemen who liked to consort with boxers and jockeys, and coachmen, so courtesans did not aim for placid but were quite happy to insult and mock men who courted them, and demand money for any small favour.

After Harriette wrote the letter I spoke about last week, she then tells us how the post arrived in the village. This is one thing that has always been a mystery to me when I’ve researched it, but here, Harriette says…

‘Two days after I had dispatched this letter, the little postwoman (for we had no postman), a good old soul, trotted… down the hill with a lanthorn (I think she means lantern); the mail used to come into Charmouth at ten o’clock at night, and Eliza Edmond and I had watched this poor creature, every night, during almost a fortnight, from my little window, as the light of her lamp appeared for an instant, and was lost again, while she stopped to deliver her letters. At last she stopped at our door, and presented two heavy packages for Mrs Wilson.’

Eliza’s mother rushed upstairs with Harriette’s mail, and then Eliza revealed Harriette’s deceit, last week we knew Harriette had not admitted she was a courtesan but now her outright lie is revealed when Eliza said, ‘One of these is a foreign letter, and, no doubt, from your husband.’

Harriette admits she ‘answered in the affirmative’, and then her new friend Eliza drifted from the room.

It was from Lord Worcester, who had already been involved in one battle, ‘He had prayed for me, as to his tutelar saint, kissed my chain, which he wore about his neck, and his party had been successful.’ He wrote the details of the battle to her and said he’d already learned Spanish, and promised eternal love and fidelity.

Then she turned her attention to the second letter. That was from Mr Meyler, the young man who had previously condemned her but was now trying to seduce her away from Lord Worcester. He said he’d sought to forget her, as there was little chance of them meeting while she was in the country, but then he said there was no question of that, and as he was unwell, he might travel down to Devon.

Harriette describes his letters as unaffected, and very different to the gushing she’d received from Lord Worcester for several years. Mr Meyler ‘was anything rather than romantic: his manner and voice were particularly pleasing at all times; but the former had, generally, something of melancholy, till he had drank a few bottles of claret, though not all noisy, ungentlemanlike, he appeared all animation and happiness.’

Harriette immediately wrote back to Mr Meyler – not to Lord Worcester.

‘I can candidly confess that I am glad you have not forgotten me; and I wish you happy, with all my heart and soul; but, believe me, I cannot prove myself more desirous of being liked and esteemed by you, than I have and shall continue to do.

As I keep faith with Worcester, so hereafter will you be inclined to trust me, if unexpected circumstances should oblige me to separate from him…’

She goes on to tell Meyler, if he should come to Devon, she would leave, and she could not imagine him there with her anyway, as she walked to church on a Sunday wearing her straw bonnet, and helping the elderly and the poor – Pushing him away, but encouraging him not to go too far away, just in case she would like to call him back again, keeping a bird in the bush as it were 😉

She does also ask him if he still sees Lord Worcester’s mother, and speaks of Lord Worcester’s family, which makes me wonder, if had he not been a friend of the Beauforts, she might actually have been tempted to see him regardless.

Perhaps at this point she still had some hope of being Lord Worcester’s future duchess, but equally knew the odds were long and so just in case she lost him, wished to keep another pretty young man on her tether. Good old Harriette.

More next week…

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional Historical and New Adult Romance stories.

See the side bar for details of Jane’s books, and Jane’s website www.janelark.co.uk to learn more about Jane. Or click ‘like’ on Jane’s Facebook page to see photo’s and learn historical facts from the Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras, which Jane publishes there. You can also follow Jane on twitter at @janelark

A new seduction…

Gosh, where did I leave Harriette last week? Ah yes, rebuffing the attentions of a young man who was not playing along with the game of adore Harriette, and treat her with utmost respect…

So as always before I continue her story, if you are joining this series of posts today here’s the background, and for anyone who has read it, as usual skip to the end of the italics.

She was one of nine surviving children. Her father was a watchmaker and her mother a stocking repairer, and both were believed to be from illegitimate origin.

You were envied if you were linked to one of the most popular courtesans or you discovered a new unknown beauty to be admired by others.

Harriette tells us that the following Saturday, despite previously putting the young Mr Meyler off she had to endure his company in her opera box, because he was there at the request of her friend, Julia, who had paid the rent on half the box, so Harriette could not in all fairness turn him out. She then claims she is teased and taunted into riding home in his carriage with Julia, but she refused bluntly to let him come into her house.

“I had promised to send Worcester a journal of everything I did; and it really is so little in my nature, that it is scarcely in my power, to be artful; and so, as I would not walk about Camden Town , to enjoy a tête-a-tête and moonlight, Julia was pressed into the service, and we all three wandered about the fields, and Meyler sighed, and talked downright sentimental about leading a chaste life for my sake, and sending away all his women!”

She says they both laughed but Meyler continued in the ‘same humour for two months’. She says (perhaps sounding as though she claims it a little too much and is writing this piece for the benefit of Lord Worcester and his family) that she never once let him into her home, and protested frequently that she did not want him in her opera box, ‘but Meyler had so many little winning ways, really they were overpowering to a poor weak woman!’ – Harriette poor, and weak? – who is she kidding.

Now this bit is one of the little gems she tells that has the ring of truth.

‘He would tap at the door of my box, and Julia would open it, and assure him that I should quarrel with them both if she admitted him: and Meyler, instead of looking cross, would sigh! And point to a rose in his bosom, and desire Julia to tell me that it was the rose I gave him a week before, and he had preserved it with the greatest care. Then he would go downstairs, and then his legs were so beautiful, and his skin so clear and transparent, and Meyler was sentimental for the first time in his life!

Really all these things…. were enough to melt a heart of stone.”

Besides his good-looks and such sentimental touches, he would always wait to greet them at the theatre door, and Harriette’s says if they had any problems with carriages he would come up and whisper that his was at the door for their use, but he would not enforce his presence within it, instead joining a friend and leaving the carriage to them – far more the behaviour Harriette craved to be shown. She liked men who displayed obsession and treated her like she was a treasure.

She tells us that Mr Meyler did succeed in speaking to her daily but never alone, and again assures us he was never permitted into her house. Though he did ask her numerous times to break her agreement with Lord Worcester and instead accept an agreement with him. She refuses, claiming that she could not endure a duel, and have them both killed, or Lord Worcester dying abroad while she suffered guilt over breaking his heart – wait for it – ‘I should never get over it: else, you know I am full half in love with you, and Worcester knows full well I was never, one bit, in love with him.

‘Then if you do love me,’ said Meyler, ‘I will hold myself disengaged, and wait for my chance with you, during the whole of that year you have promised to wait for Worcester’s return.’

She says she had no faith in him, but that she had no faith in herself either, and so, rather than betray Lord Worcester she makes a decision to retire to a village in the country. Saying, she owed it to Lord Worcester who had done so much for her.

On her parting with Mr Meyler, he asks if he may write, and she agrees he may, but tells him his letters can only include friendship as she shall show them to Lord Worcester. He then gives her a lock of his hair in a silver tooth pick box – I love that they used to give each other hair. I love looking at trinkets like that in historical houses, I find all that so fascinating.

Anyway, so that is where we leave Harriette for today, heading off to isolation in a village near Exeter, she says it was Charmouth…

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional love stories.