Welbeck

“ In this art, as in most others, I was an unpractised simpleton. In the countenance of Welbeck, there was somewhat else than sympathy with the astonishment and distress of the lady; but I could not interpret these additional tokens. When her attention was engrossed by Welbeck, her eyes were frequently vagrant or downcast; her cheeks contracted a deeper hue; and her breathing was almost prolonged into a sigh. These were marks on which I made no comments at the time. My own situation was calculated to breed confusion in my thoughts and awkwardness in my gestures. ”

“ Welbeck! Would that my first words could strike thee dead! They will so, if thou hast any title to the name of man.
"'My sister is dead; dead of anguish and a broken heart. Remote from her friends; in a hovel; the abode of indigence and misery.
"'Her husband is no more. He returned after a long absence, a tedious navigation, and vicissitudes of hardships. He flew to the bosom of his love; of his wife. She was gone; lost to him, and to virtue. In a fit of desperation, he retired to his chamber and despatched himself. ”

“ I spoke with mildness and composure:—
"Mr. Welbeck, you are unfortunate and criminal. Would to God I could restore you to happiness and virtue! but, though my desire be strong, I have no power to change your habits or rescue you from misery.
"I believed you to be dead. I rejoice to find myself mistaken. While you live, there is room to hope that your errors will be cured; and the turmoils and inquietudes that have hitherto beset your guilty progress will vanish by your reverting into better paths. ”

“ I cannot imagine what could prompt him to so wearisome an undertaking; but he says that adventures and a destiny so singular as mine ought not to be abandoned to forgetfulness like any vulgar and every-day existence. Besides, when he wrote it, he suspected that it might be necessary to the safety of my reputation and my life, from the consequences of my connection with Welbeck. Time has annihilated that danger. All enmities and all suspicions are buried with that ill-fated wretch. Wortley has been won by my behaviour, and confides in my integrity now as much as he formerly suspected it. ”

“ These noises gave a new direction to Welbeck's thoughts. "They are coming," said he. "They will treat you as a sick man and a thief. I cannot desire you to suffer a worse evil than they will inflict. I leave you to your fate." So saying, he rushed out of the room.
Though confounded and stunned by this rapid succession of events, I was yet able to pursue measures for eluding these detested visitants. I first extinguished the light, and then, observing that the parley in the street continued and grew louder, I sought an asylum in the remotest corner of the house. ”

“ Glancing vaguely at the countenance of Watson, my attention was arrested by a convulsive motion in the eyelids. This motion increased, till at length the eyes opened, and a glance, languid but wild, was thrown around. Instantly they closed, and the tremulous appearance vanished.
I started from my place and was on the point of uttering some involuntary exclamation. At the same moment, Welbeck seemed to recover from his reverie.
"How is this?" said he. "Why do we linger here? Every moment is precious. We cannot dig for him a grave with our hands. ”

“ Mr. Welbeck! It is not my desire to give you perplexity or anguish; to sport with your passions. On the supposition of your death, I deemed it no infraction of justice to take this manuscript. Accident unfolded its contents. I could not hesitate to choose my path. The natural and legal successor of Vincentio Lodi is his sister. ”

“ My senses are the sport of dreams. Some magic that disdains the cumbrousness of nature's progress has wrought this change." I was roused from these doubts by a summons to breakfast, obsequiously delivered by a black servant.
I found Welbeck (for I shall henceforth call him by his true name) at the breakfast-table. A superb equipage of silver and china was before him. He was startled at my entrance. The change in my dress seemed for a moment to have deceived him. His eye was frequently fixed upon me with unusual steadfastness. At these times there was inquietude and wonder in his features. ”

“ To be fooled by so gross an artifice! The notes were genuine. The tale of their forgery was false and meant only to wrest them from you. Execrable and perverse idiot! Your deed has sealed my perdition. It has sealed your own. You shall pay for it with your blood. I will slay you by inches. I will stretch you, as you have stretched me, on the rack."
During this speech, all was frenzy and storm in the countenance and features of Welbeck. Nothing less could be expected than that the scene would terminate in some bloody catastrophe. ”

“ You say he means to return; but of that I doubt. You will never see his face more. He is too wise to thrust himself again into the noose; but I do not utterly despair of lighting upon Welbeck. Old Thetford, Jamieson, and I, have sworn to hunt him through the world. I have strong hopes that he has not strayed far. Some intelligence has lately been received, which has enabled us to place our hounds upon his scent. He may double and skulk; but, if he does not fall into our toils at last, he will have the agility and cunning, as well as the malignity, of devils. ”

“ From these thoughts I was recalled by a message from Welbeck. He gave me a folded paper, which he requested me to carry to No.—South Fourth Street. "Inquire," said he, "for Mrs. Wentworth, in order merely to ascertain the house, for you need not ask to see her; merely give the letter to the servant and retire. Excuse me for imposing this service upon you. It is of too great moment to be trusted to a common messenger; I usually perform it myself, but am at present otherwise engaged." ”

“ They were lately in the hands of Watson, but Watson has disappeared. Suspicions are awake respecting the cause of his disappearance. These suspicions are connected with Welbeck, and Welbeck's connection with you is not unknown."
"These are evils, but I see not how an ingenious and open conduct is adapted to increase these evils. If they come, I must endure them."
"I believe your decision is right. No one is so skilful an advocate in a cause, as he whose cause it is. ”

“ To indulge an adventurous spirit, I left the precincts of the barn-door, enlisted in the service of a stranger, and encountered a thousand dangers to my virtue under the disastrous influence of Welbeck. Afterwards my life was set at hazard in the cause of Wallace, and now am I loaded with the province of protecting the helpless Eliza Hadwin and the unfortunate Clemenza. My wishes are fervent, and my powers shall not be inactive in their defence; but how slender are these powers! ”

“ Take the pistol and defend yourself. You want not the power or the will; but, knowing that I spurn at murder, you think your safety will be found in passiveness. Your refusal will avail you little. Your fame, if not your life, is at my mercy. If you falter now, I will allow you to live, but only till I have stabbed your reputation.'
"I now fixed my eyes steadfastly upon him, and spoke:—'How much a stranger are you to the feelings of Welbeck! ”

“ In 1694 the Earl of Clare was created Duke of Newcastle. His grace died at Welbeck, through a fall from his horse, in 1711, and the title thus again became extinct. He left issue an only daughter, the Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles, who married Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, and thus conveyed the Welbeck and Bolsover estates to that nobleman. The issue of this marriage was an only daughter and heiress, the Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, who married William Bentinck, Duke of Portland. ”

“ Well, it is tiresome for a respectable middle-aged Englishman to be kissed in the public streets by a foreign gentleman with an exuberance of beard and moustaches, just as if he was a sweet girl in the embraces of her long-lost, long-loved Roderick just returned from the Punjaub—but in the young lady's case, without any damage to the proprieties, as the transaction occurs in the back drawing-room of 510, Welbeck Street. ”

“ No injury will accrue from my disclosure to Welbeck. If there should, dishonest as he was, that would be a sufficient reason for my silence. Wortley will not, in any degree, be benefited by any communication that I can make. Whether I grant or withhold information, my conduct will have influence only on my own happiness, and that influence will justify me in granting it.
"I received your protection when I was friendless and forlorn. You have a right to know whom it is that you protected. ”

“ The nucleus of a branch exhibition was forming itself in Welbeck Street. "Don't you give way to nerves, Barton! I'm only going down to see a man who seems anxious to see me, but I shouldn't be going to him if we had anybody up-stairs. ”

“ Their portable wealth, which may reasonably be supposed to be great, they have transported hither. Thus may be explained the sorrow that veils their countenance. The loss of estates and honours; the untimely death of kindred, and perhaps of his wife, may furnish eternal food for regrets. Welbeck's utterance, though rapid and distinct, partook, as I conceived, in some very slight degree of a foreign idiom. ”

“ All is vast, splendid, and utterly comfortless: one could imagine no more awful and ghastly fate than waking up one day and finding oneself Duke of Portland and master of Welbeck.
“Coming home through the tunnel, Mr. Watson told me the curious story of the Misses Offley of Norton Hall. These ladies (descended from King Offa) saw in a vision their only brother, who was with a tutor in Edinburgh, upon the ridge of the house. ”

“ Welbeck—how true to the rhyme!—lasts and “will last”—“day bright,” a “saddle,” a place to “ride in,” a great “parish,” a home for use, for “good keepinge,”—in a word, an institution for posterity to wonder at. Such also is Rufford, one of the few great buildings which have escaped fire. Among the list of the disestablished monasteries it passed into the hands of the Talbots, who made good use of its Elizabethan gallery and its state chambers. On the other hand, the original manor house of Worksop—“the wise,” the “pallas,” the “throne,” was burnt down in 1761, was “decaide” very soon. ”

“ The vengeful disposition thus betrayed by Wortley was not without excuse. The vigour of his days had been spent in acquiring a slender capital; his diligence and honesty had succeeded, and he had lately thought his situation such as to justify marriage with an excellent woman, to whom he had for years been betrothed, but from whom his poverty had hitherto compelled him to live separate. Scarcely had this alliance taken place, and the full career of nuptial enjoyments begun, when his ill fate exposed him to the frauds of Welbeck, and brought him, in one evil hour, to the brink of insolvency. ”

“ He himself died in 1634, and his son Huntingdon in 1648. They were both buried at Bolsover, in Derbyshire, and an inscription over the grave of the son speaks of his “skill in architecture.” The two have been confused with each other, but their separate identity has recently been made clear. [3] According to Walpole, [32] in his “Anecdotes of Painting,” “John Smithson was an architect in the service of the Earls of Newcastle. He built part of Welbeck in 1604, the riding-house there in 1623, [4] and the stables in 1625 ”

“ His son, the 5th duke, William John Cavendish Bentinck-Scott (1800–1879) died unmarried. He is notable for having constructed the underground halls at Welbeck Abbey, and for his retiring habits of life, which gave occasion for some singular stories. [1] He was succeeded by his cousin William John Arthur Charles James Cavendish-Bentinck (b. 1857) as 6th duke.
↑ 1 Public interest centred for some years round the allegation that he lived a double life and was identical with Mr T. C. Druce, an upholsterer of Baker Street, London, who, in 1851, married Annie May. ”

“ The darling of the lower orders needed only a dashing exploit or two to his credit, and a hair’s-breadth escape from the armed men sent to track him down, to make him equally the darling of the drawing-room. Fine ladies went to see him in chains at Newgate, often to condole with him, and give him money. Horace Walpole grows quite enthusiastic over McLean, a former grocer of Welbeck Street, who took to the road, and in the course of his depredations relieved Walpole of his watch and sword. The circumstances of the robbery are told in the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1749:
“The Hon. ”

“ On the 27th of October, the Princess of Wales and the Duke of Gloucester returned from Germany. They travelled all night and arrived very early in London, to prevent her Royal Highness receiving any insults from the populace.
The preparatives for war and the want of men occasioned orders being given for pressing. Wilkes, as the patron of liberty, declared against that practice as illegal; and, as sitting Alderman, dismissed a man who had been impressed within the liberties of the City. Sawbridge did the like; yet the latter was by no means attached to Wilkes, nor led by him. ”

“ She fastened her eyes upon the Duke of Wellington, the victor of Waterloo, the statesman of the hour, the most commanding figure in the three kingdoms. Wellington was then sixty-five, a man covered with honor and absorbed in public affairs. But, to Miss Jenkins, he was simply a great worldly figure, and, in 1834, she wrote a letter--a letter winged by many prayers--warning him of the peril of living without a sure, deep consciousness of the forgiveness of sins, through the redemption of Jesus Christ. Wellington's iron nature was strongly moved. ”