The Lady In Red: An Eighteenth-Century Tale Of Sex, Scandal, And Divorce by Hallie Rubenhold Read Free Book Online Page A

reflect his understanding of high taste, elegant plasterwork in scrolls and swags was added to the ceilings and architraves.
    In August 1772, although the interior was not entirely complete, Appuldurcombe with its ‘twenty to thirty bedrooms’ was deemed comfortably habitable and Worsley, Lady Betty and his sister Henrietta took up residence there. Decorating, mainly in the service wing, would continue until 1782. At various intervals, the existing furniture was replaced with finely crafted objects from the workshops of Chippendale and Haig, the esteemed purveyors who had supplied the halls of his in-laws with their ‘split backed japanned chairs’ and satinwood tables. By the time he installed his young wife here, Sir Richard was able to survey his schemes and conclude that he had ‘much improved upon the original design’. From the house’s recently polished interior they could now peer through the windows and note with interest that developments had moved outside into the grounds. These were being dug and reshaped under the direction of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, the landscape architect who had only recently churned over the grassy meadows of Harewood. For Seymour, who herself had been transplanted from one incomplete country estate to the next, the movement of trees into decorative ‘clumps’ and clusters, the clearing of vistas and the creation of a sweeping serpentine drive would have been familiar scenes.
    This protracted period of renovation did not come without a significant cost. Between 1775 and 1778, Sir Richard’s bank account with Hoare’s was perpetually in the red. The expenses accrued at Appuldurcombe were matched by the need to outfit his London house. Bills from Chippendale and Haig in excess of £2,000, and payments for china and ceramic ware to both Wedgwood and Spode drained his finances. In 1780, Worsley decided to sell his childhood home, Pylewell to underwrite the cost. The now outdated,
compact rooms of Pylewell reeked too much of the manners of awkward country gentry to make for a comfortable home. The modest but valuable collection of books, art and antiquities gathered by his father and his Worsley predecessors were moved to Appuldurcombe, as were the seventeenth-century faces captured by the brushes of Van Dyck, Peter Lely and Godfrey Kneller which lined the walls of the echoing great hall.
    Over the years Sir Richard’s interest in the small assortment of objects that had fallen into his care had matured into a passion. It was one that had been nurtured under his father’s direction and encouraged by Deyverdun. Since his return he had taken his first tentative steps as a patron of the arts by extending his commissions and friendship to Joshua Reynolds. By 1777, he wished to affirm his interest in antiquarianism publicly by becoming a member of London’s learned societies. On the 18th of December his acceptance into the Society of Antiquaries was personally signed by its president, who declared him ‘a Gentleman in every way qualified to be a Fellow, by his extensive acquaintance with most Branches of Literature’ (by which he was referring to the baronet’s impressive knowledge of classical texts). The following year he was admitted to the Society of Dilettanti, a type of show-and-tell organisation specifically for gentlemen who had been on the grand tour and who enjoyed a drink as much as they did an opportunity to admire each other’s images of Venus, marble priapi and ancient cameos. In March 1778, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, a body with a slightly more serious reputation for scholarship.
    Even as a member of these associations, Worsley moved in a very select circle. The antiquarians and art patrons he rubbed shoulders with were in some cases the same personalities with whom he shared his political life. In the year before his marriage the baronet had been elected to Parliament as the honourable member for Newport. Both Sir Richard and his father had