At midnight the maid went in to take Mr Strange some gruel. When she returned to the kitchen she reported that Mr Strange had found the hand-warmers and taken them out and put them on the table. The servants went sorrowfully to bed, convinced that the new manservant would be dead by morning.

Morning came. The door to Mr Strange’s writing-room was closed. Seven o’clock came and no one rang the bell for the servant; no one appeared. Eight o’clock came. Nine o’clock. Ten. The servants wrung their hands in despair.

But what they had forgot – what, indeed, Laurence Strange had forgot – was that the new manservant was a young, strong man, whereas Laurence Strange was an old one – and some of what the new manservant had been made to suffer that night, Laurence Strange had been forced to share. At seven minutes past ten the butler and the coachman ventured in together and found the new manservant upon the floor fast asleep, his fever gone. On the other side of the room, seated at his writing-table was Laurence Strange, frozen to death.

When the events of those two nights became more generally known there was a great curiosity to see the new manservant, such as there might be to see a dragonslayer or a man who had toppled a giant. Of course the new manservant was glad to be thought remarkable, and as he told and re-told the story he discovered that what he had actually said to Mr Strange when he asked for the third glass of sherry-wine was: “Oh! it may suit you very well now, you wicked old sinner, to abuse honest men and drive them into their graves, but a day is coming – and not far off either – when you shall have to answer for every sigh you have forced from an honest man’s breast, every tear you have wrung from a widow’s eye!” Likewise it was soon well known in the neighbourhood that when Mr Strange had opened the window with the kind intention of starving the new manservant to death with cold the new manservant had cried out, “Cold at first, Laurence Strange, but hot at last! Cold at first, hot at last!” – a prophetic reference to Mr Strange’s present situation.

15
“How is Lady Pole?”

January 1808

“How is lady Pole?”

In every part of the Town and among all stations and degrees of citizen the question was to be heard. In Covent-garden at break of dawn, costermongers asked flower-girls, “How is Lady Pole?”. In Ackermann’s in the Strand, Mr Ackermann himself inquired of his customers (members of the nobility and persons of distinction) whether they had any news of Lady Pole. In the House of Commons during dull speeches, Members of Parliament whispered the question to their neighbours (each regarding Sir Walter out of the corner of his eye as he did so). In Mayfair dressing-rooms in the early hours of the morning, maids begged their mistresses’ pardons, “… but was Lady Pole at the party tonight? And how is her ladyship?”