What does a gentleman care for money?

I had thought this book was a complete original: a one-off, knocked out in a burst of enthusiasm by a gentleman-amateur who loved his subject so much he was willing to venture into print. I thought he had no grander aim than to amuse himself and a lady friend,  please his own vanity, perhaps impress a cultured friend or two.  But now, I think the whole project was really about making money.

Why?

Because this notice appeared in a supplement to The Times of March 11, 1844:

He has got married.
Abroad. 

And his bride's father is somebody who later describes himself grandly in a census return as a 'landed proprietor', and who no doubt was, but - there is land, and there is land.  From what I can see I doubt Benjamin Price Esq. of Westbury in the county of Bucks is in anything like the same league, acreage-wise, as Nathaniel Wells Esq. of Piercefield in the county of Monmouth.

(Also, whatever happened to the charming Mrs C......r that Nathaniel sent all his Spanish letters to? She of the elegant balls, silky pet dogs and rented chateaux?  She is nowhere mentioned, unless she was on the wedding guest list at the Embassy.)

No.  Somehow I feel the eldest son of a very wealthy man should be marrying in his local parish church, or perhaps his bride's...but not in Paris.  What I suspect is that Nathaniel has married in a hurry and, crucially, may have married beneath him.  He has married 'to disoblige his family', in Austen's phrase.  So presumably there has been an almighty row, his father is reluctant to increase the usual funds and suddenly, turning all those letters from Spain and those sprightly amateur pictures into something you can actually get money from, is quite an urgent matter. 

Furthermore I think I know why he married when he did.  Very shortly after the marriage it seems (from later census returns)  the new Mrs Wells was blessed with a son.  And I can't quite say how soon after, for the baby boy was apparently born in Caen, and yet strangely the Anglican church there has no record of his baptism.  And in later life, he seems uncertain quite how old he is.

And also, when Nathaniel suddenly dies while his son (Nathaniel Armstrong Wells II) is a mere infant - what happens?  Is Baby swept into the bosom of his wealthy grandfather and carried off to Piercefield, there to receive the upbringing suited to the heir of many acres? No.  The first census return after his father's death finds little toddler Nathaniel living with his widowed mother, who is teaching in a school.

Teaching. In. A. School.

That's right - Georgiana Lucy, widow of Nathaniel Armstrong Wells Esq, the daughter of the 'landed proprietor' Benjamin Price of Westbury - is earning her own crust like any other poor widow.  At least she isn't taking in washing.

So now I think I can guess why Nathaniel took his manuscript to the printers.

Now and Then

Then: what Nathaniel saw

Now: it has changed a bit, I agree.

The discrepancy between these two images is not due to Nathaniel's bad drawing skills: the fountain apparently did look different back then.  It had clearly been in the wars, in every sense. According to Nathaniel, when he saw it you couldn't even tell what those four fragmented, beaten-up Cupids were meant to be riding on.

Looking at the modern photo we can see the basin and central column rising from it aren't much altered, but the Cupids and their dolphins(?) have been heavily restored, and there has clearly been a significant rebuild at the top.  Even in Nathaniel's day, when the little statue surmounting the fountain was so damaged the Christ child had vanished altogether, there was  a visible difference in colour between the lower part of the fountain and the upper: so it seems the lower part is much older. The original design is perhaps impossible to guess.  Would an earlier age have chosen to place the vaguely erotic symbols of Cupids and Melusines beneath a statue of the Virgin?   I can't say.  Anyway, as Nathaniel described it:

"This little antique monument charms, by the quaint symmetry of its design and proportions, and perhaps even by the terribly mutilated state of the four fragments of Cupids, which, riding on the necks of the same number of animals so maltreated as to render impossible the discovery of their race, form projecting angles, and support the basin on their shoulders. Four mermaids, holding up their tails, so as not to interfere with the operations of the Cupids, ornament the sides of the basin, which are provided with small apertures for the escape of the water; the top being covered by a flat circular stone, carved around its edge. This stone,—a small, elegantly shaped pedestal, which surmounts it,—and the other portions already described, are nearly black, probably from antiquity; but on the pedestal stands a little marble virgin, as white as snow. This antique figure harmonises by its mutilation with the rest, although injured in a smaller degree; and at the same time adds to the charm of the whole, by the contrast of its dazzling whiteness with the dark mass on which it is supported. The whole is balanced on the capital of a pillar, of a most original form, which appears immediately above the surface of a sheet of water enclosed in a large octagonal basin."