Wedlock (18 page)

Having made London his home since returning from Bengal, Gray had seemingly failed to endear himself either to his family or to society. The satirical ballad
The Stoniad
would employ typical colonial prejudice by suggesting, wrongly, that ‘half-wake orient G*y’ had not only been born in India but was actually a Hindu or ‘
tout á fait
GENTOO’. But his friends were no more complimentary. It was after dining with Gray and Boswell at the house of Samuel Foote in 1772 that the playwright had been inspired to pen his savage attack on imperialism,
The Nabob
. The satire, published in 1778, would help establish the contemporary view of East India Company employees like Gray as jumped-up, greedy, arrogant villains. ‘These new gentlemen,’ explains one character, ‘who from the caprice of Fortune, and a strange chain of events, have acquired immoderate wealth and rose to uncontroled power abroad, find it difficult to descend from their dignity, and admit of any equal at home.’
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On the other hand, Gray’s behaviour in India had been no more disreputable than that of Lord Clive who committed suicide in 1774 following sustained censure over his own approbation of significantly larger ‘presents’.

Living in Portman Square, a popular address with overseas entrepreneurs, Nabob Gray could reach Mary’s house on the other side of Oxford Street in a few minutes. Since luxurious Grosvenor Square was as famous for its aristocratic residents as it was notorious for their scandalous lives, it was not long before his visits were noticed. Among the first to tender suspicions was Elizabeth Planta, who initially dismissed Gray’s interest as a harmless flirtation but soon realised his intentions were less than honourable. Fearful that Elizabeth would convey her information to Mrs Bowes, or worse to the Strathmore family, Mary affected a sudden and violent dislike for her former governess, who had effectively lived as a member of the Bowes family for nearly twenty years. Keeping her actions a secret from her mother, Mary borrowed money from her lawyer, Joshua Peele, when he visited St Paul’s Walden Bury soon after the late earl’s death, and offered Miss Planta an irresistible payoff totalling £2,000.
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Furnished with sufficient funds to keep her comfortable for life, that July Miss Planta, or Mrs Parish as she would become on her marriage not long after, left the children she had looked after since they were babies.

Carefully covering her tracks, Mary was at pains to denounce the governess’s behaviour as ‘the most vile, ungrateful, and pernicious that ever was heard of’, insisting that she exhibited an ‘uninterrupted series of ill-temper, deceit, self-interestedness, and ingratitude; with obstinacy, and in many respects a bad method with my children’ and that ‘in short, she was too insufferable, else I would have retained her’. It was plain that the lady did protest too much. There is little doubt that the goodbye gift was hush money to buy the governess’s silence over Mary’s adulterous relationship with Gray, and quite probably her first pregnancy and abortion too. There were generous presents too, in the shape of a watch and some old furniture, for George Walker, the discreet footman. But no amount of skulking up backstairs or offering backhanders could prevent the affair becoming public in the claustrophobic world of London society.

It was Walker who first related the gossip circulating in the capital’s coffee-houses and taverns. Initially the couple encouraged him and laughed together at ‘all the ridiculous stories’ during their nightly encounters. ‘I was always extremely silly, in not minding reports,’ Mary wrote, ‘on the contrary, rather encouraged them; partly, that I might laugh at other people’s absurdities and credulity, and partly, because I left it to time and reason, to shew they were false.’
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Openly displaying their disdain for public opinion, the pair now ventured out together, parading in the public parks and city streets in Mary’s open carriage even though she was still in mourning. The blue-stockings Frances Boscawen and Mary Delany excitedly exchanged news of their sightings that summer: ‘Yesterday I was told by a lady that she had met Lady Strathmore with servts still in mourning,
but wearing white favours in their hats
(as at a wedding),’ revealed Mrs Boscawen, ‘also that in the chaise with her, sat an ill-looking man, from whence inference was made that she was marry’d to some Italian.’
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According to Jessé Foot, the surgeon, Gray’s ‘visits were constant, and their airings open’.

It was inevitable then that reports of Mary’s excursions flaunting her new lover would reach the ears of Thomas Lyon in Streatlam. Still discovering his brother’s unpaid debts and grimly selling off land and chattels to balance the books, he knew that a second marriage by his brother’s widow could compromise the future fortunes of Lord Strathmore’s children. A new heir, for example, could certainly confuse the inheritance. For the moment he scrutinised the reports and kept his powder dry. The gossip piqued the interest of others with a pecuniary interest too. Coquettishly playing the field, Mary exchanged locks of hair with a suitor she enigmatically called ‘Mr C. W.’ and sent a short but flirtatious refusal to a certain ‘Mr MacCallaster’.
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Less easy to dismiss with a keepsake or a brusque rebuff was James Graham, who arrived unexpectedly on her doorstep in London that summer, having heard of her husband’s demise. Now a lieutenant, although at twenty still only just out of boyhood, Graham hoped to revive their carefree youthful passion. Still stung by his neglect, Mary refused to see him, even when he attempted to throw himself in her way on further occasions. For all his youth, he was the only man she would ever truly care for, yet her pride and a justifiable fear of further heartache prevented her from admitting her feelings. She would later say that ‘having, at the risk of my life, conquered my headstrong passion, I was determined not to expose myself to another conflict, with one whom I had so much reason to be afraid of.’
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She did indeed preserve herself from the pain of future loss. Less than three years later, in January 1779, James Graham would die, of unknown causes, in Naples.

By July 1776, even as the American colonies declared their independence from the British Crown, Mary had resigned herself to wedlock once again. While she would never feel more for Gray than lust and friendship, she had convinced herself that he would make a dependable husband, a dutiful stepfather and - since she was probably pregnant again - a loving natural father. Certainly they shared common interests in poetry and drama while Gray slotted in well with the ever-expanding social circle that congregated in the drawing room of 40 Grosvenor Square. For regardless of the fact that she was still officially in mourning, Mary’s gatherings in the splendid four-storey house in the south-west corner of the square had become popular and animated events within London’s tight-knit scientific fraternity.

Conversation at Mary’s salons in the summer of 1776 would almost certainly have focused on the treasure trove of botanical delights which had recently been shipped back from the Cape by Francis Masson; the Kew gardener had submitted an account of his explorations to the Royal Society which had been read during three meetings in February. Having linked up with the Swedish naturalist, Carl Peter Thunberg, for one of his expeditions, Masson informed the society that they ‘like true lovers of science thought themselves richly overpaid, by the ample collection of curious & new plants, as well as animals which they found in their way’.
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Since Masson had just set sail again, this time headed for the Canary Islands, the prospect of further discoveries waiting to be plucked in the enticing Cape region naturally enthralled those he left behind. Among the Royal Society fellows who enlivened Mary’s scientific discussions, Daniel Solander, the Swedish botanist, was impatient for further plant specimens while his friend, John Hunter, was always in the market for exotic new animal species, like the long-necked, spotted ‘camelopard’ which was fabled to live in southern Africa.

The fact that Mary was denied entrance to the exclusively male Royal Society, despite her extensive knowledge and devotion to botany, did nothing to quell her interest in reports from Africa nor her desire to further scientific enlightenment as a patron. Inspired by tales of Masson’s voyage, and probably encouraged by Hunter and Solander, she now laid plans to finance an ambitious mission to send an explorer into uncharted parts of the Cape in search of new flora for her own burgeoning collection. It may well have been Solander who introduced her to William Paterson, a genial twenty-year-old Scottish gardener with little formal education but a huge sense of adventure who agreed to undertake her expedition the following spring. Certainly Solander had escorted Paterson to a Royal Society meeting in May that year and the pair would remain friends.
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Other scientific enthusiasts within Mary’s orbit included Richard Penneck, superintendent of the British Museum’s reading room, and Joseph Planta, younger brother to Mrs Parish, who had taken over as librarian at the museum upon his father’s death in 1773. Having just been appointed one of the two secretaries to the Royal Society, the ambitious 32-year-old Planta was rather more immune to Mary’s attractions than many of his fellow guests - and had no doubt been kept abreast of her nocturnal activities by the ousted Mrs Parish.

Alongside Mary’s earnest discussions on botany there were jovial breakfasts, languid dinners and musical suppers, frequent opera and theatre trips, and frivolous excursions about town on any number of pretexts with a host of less illustrious guests. These included James Mario Matra, a thirty-year-old naval officer who had sailed around the world with Banks and Solander in the cramped cabins of the
Endeavour
. Born Magra - he later changed his name - and originally from New York, he was suspected by Captain Cook of slicing off parts of the ears of a drunken shipmate. Despite the fact that Matra was subsequently cleared of the brutal deed, the affable Cook nevertheless described his midshipman as ‘one of those gentlemen, frequently found on board Kings Ships, that can very well be spared, or to speak more planer good for nothing’.
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The bespectacled Matra had been introduced into Mary’s set by his fellow voyager Solander and his own brother, a decidedly more shadowy character, Captain Perkins Magra. Having enlisted with the army as an ensign in 1761, Magra had fought for British forces in America but was on leave in London in the summer of 1776. One more constant companion who could not be left out of any social outing was the children’s new governess, Eliza Planta. No sooner had Elizabeth Planta packed her bags and bade the children farewell than Mary had employed her younger sister - for the Planta family had a seemingly endless supply of talented daughters - in her stead.
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Wily, flighty and promiscuous, in stark contrast to her prim elder sister, nineteen-year-old Eliza - baptised Ann Eliza - quickly established herself as an indispensable ally and eager confidante of her mistress.

Intoxicated by her liberty, whether it was to debate the finer points of science with fellows of the Royal Society, practise her skill for languages with her intellectual equals or flirt outrageously with the stream of sycophants who clamoured to her door, Mary was living life to the full. It was her year of behaving badly. Carelessly courting scandal, she flaunted her lover, abused her body, spent extravagantly and jeopardised her relationship with her children, especially the neglected young earl. She would be judged forever on the reckless excesses of this one year - in reality little more than nine months - and come to regret bitterly her waywardness. According to Foot, who would become one of Mary’s harshest critics: ‘Her judgement was weak, her prudence almost none, and her prejudice unbounded.’
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In a view that would stand as a lasting image of the Countess of Strathmore, the surgeon described Mary’s house as a ‘temple of folly’ and declared that her undoubted talents and intellect were ‘that sort which required to be under the controul of some other’. That Foot regarded the control Mary apparently needed to be male went without saying; that he also, as an avowed enemy of his professional rival John Hunter, was never likely to gain access to Mary’s ‘temple’ was equally left unsaid. Later, mostly male, writers would dispense similarly severe criticism and suggest that Mary’s future trials were simply just desserts for her licentious behaviour. Even Mary would subscribe to the view that the miseries in store were all divine punishment for her adulterous affair with Gray. For even as she appeared to be in charge of her life for the first time, in reality she was edging closer to an ever-tightening trap. ‘God blinded my judgement,’ she later explained, ‘that I could not discern, in any case, what was for my children’s and my own advantage; but in every thing where there were two expedients, I chose the worst.’
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The worst, however, was still to come.

Living with Gray effectively ‘as his wife’, scandalising strait-laced society as a merry widow and a neglectful mother, her home had become an open house to a growing band of unwholesome characters bent on selfish ends. Whenever a trip to the opera or a supper party was planned, the attentive Captain Magra would always be on hand as a ready escort. Whenever she desired a friendly ear for whispered confidences, Eliza Planta was at her side. And when the debonair Irish soldier arrived in London that July, Mary welcomed him into the fold with open arms.

 

Since Hannah Newton’s death on 11 March, conveniently just four days after that of the Earl of Strathmore, Andrew Robinson Stoney had wasted little time grieving. Pocketing the £5,000 which he had inherited through his wife’s will, while attempting to hang on to Cole Pike Hill in the face of furious protests from the rightful heir, Sam Newton, the merry widower headed south for the top entertainment spots of Georgian England. As the busy summer season approached, Stoney squandered his money and his idle hours at the gaming tables, race courses and cockpits with disreputable hard-drinking friends from his army past. With his bounty slipping rapidly through his fingers, supplemented only by his paltry army half-pay of about £40 a year, the former lieutenant was becoming anxious to secure a more reliable source of income to maintain his indulgent lifestyle.
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Accompanied by his valet, Thomas Mahon, the self-promoted ‘Captain’ Stoney made for Scarborough, the fashionable Yorkshire seaside and spa town to which wealthy and well-bred families repaired during the summer months. Eyeing up the gentry enjoying the sea-bathing and the horse-racing along the sandy beach, Stoney hunted for another gullible heiress to lure down the aisle. It was not long before he chanced upon Anne Massingberd, the 28-year-old daughter of William Burrell Massingberd, a cultured and respected gentleman who lived in South Ormsby in Lincolnshire where he fulfilled the post of sheriff.
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