CHAPTER IX
1831-1835
Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister
GREENWICH PARK,[October or November] 1831.
MY DEAREST THERESA, I would take a larger sheet of paper, but it does so happen that ever since we have nominally had stationery for nothing, I have never been able to find anything in the nature of paper, pen, or sealing-wax; indeed, for some time one pen served the whole house. It never came to my turn to have it, as you perceived, and I scorned to buy one. The country may yet afford a quarter of a hundred of pens, at least I suppose so.
You were quite right, I really did look at the end of your letter for your signature. The date, and your beginning, “You must have forgotten who I am,” and your writing such a simple hand, put me out, and I said to George, “This must be some Carnegie or Elliot cousin, by the token of Edinbro’, whom I ought to remember.” I was so pleased when I found it was you; though your expecting an answer is odd, not to say troublesome. However, anything to please you.
What a delicious tour you have had. I cannot imagine anything much pleasanter. The two articles in your letter that disappoint me are, that it does not appear you are intensely bored by the Scotch, considered as members of society; nor that you are sufficiently mad about the beauty of Edinbro’. I think the old town so much the most picturesque thing I ever saw, and the scenery all about it so beautiful. In short, such a slow drawly people have no right to such a romantic capital. They are very tiresome, poor dears! but I suppose they cannot help it; else, if they would speak a thought quicker, and even catch even the glimmer of a joke, and give up all that old nonsense about Chiefs and plaids and pretenders and so on, I should grudge them that town less.
I have been living here very quietly nearly three months, I think – that is as quietly as is compatible with the times; but it has been an eventful summer. What with the opening of bridges, crowning Kings and Queens, and launching ships, I have seen more sights and greater masses of human creatures than usual; and then there has been some talk of a Reform in Parliament, a mere playful idea, which may not have reached you, but which has occasionally been alluded to in conversation here. What a business they all made of it last week.367 They speak amazingly well, those dear Lords, but they are not so happy at voting…
I could quite understand those Tories if I could find one who would say the Bill is thrown out for good, but I have not seen one who does not say it must pass in three months, so why refuse to consider it now? London has been an ugly-looking sight. We drove up to it most days to see George, and to take him down to the House, because I like to see him safe thro’ the crowd.
Women in London have made themselves so extremely ridiculous and conspicuous, by their party violence, and I have no reason for thinking I should have been wiser than others, if I had been in the same state of excitement. Besides, it is such a bore to be very eager, it tires me to death, and yet one catches it, if other people have the same complaint.
The gardener has taken up all the geraniums. That is not a light grievance, it portends frost and spoils the garden. I wish you had seen it this year, I am certain there never were so many flowers in so small a space.
Anne Robinson368 came here for three days, and took a fancy for gardening, but I am afraid it did not last. She paid us such a nice visit I asked Lord Morpeth to meet her, thinking that a proper procèdé. Then somebody who had been dining at Putney369 told me I was quite wrong, and that Mr. Villiers was the person to ask. So I driv up to town like mad and caught him before dinner-time. I thought as he had a Dawkins-Pennant to look to, it was rather hard to interfere with Lord Morpeth’s chance, but I need not have had that delicacy about a fair division of fortune.
Lord Morpeth came here for a longer visit the following week, and I do not think he has the remotest intention of making up to Anne, or any other person. He is absorbed in politics, and says it would bore him to change his situation. Your ever affect.
E. E.
Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister
30 GROSVENOR STREET,Thursday [January 1832].
MY DEAREST THERESA, Not the least affronted. It never crosses my mind to invent any other cause for anybody’s silence, but the simple fact that the bore of writing a letter is almost intolerable, and I never fancy anything, either that they are affronted or ill, or hurt (don’t you know how many people are delighted to feel hurt), or dead; but I simply suppose they are not in a writing humour…
I am glad you liked Bowood. I saw her on Monday on her way through town, quite enchanted with Paris and with the fuss that had been made with them. She likes your brother Edward370 very much, and seemed to have seen a great deal of him. I have not seen Lord Lansdowne yet, but he is to stay on in town some days longer. I wish there were any chance of our meeting you at Bowood, but I fear it is not very likely. In the summer they said they hoped we would come in the winter, but I never go there without a renewed invitation for some special time, because it is always a doubt, I think, whether she likes all the visitors he asks, and I hate to go in uncertainty.
I have been passing a fortnight at Panshanger – went with George for three days, and then Lady Cowper made me stay on. It is a most difficult house to get away from, partly because it is so pleasant, and then that her dawdling way of saying, “Oh no, you can’t go, I always understood you were to stay till we go to Brighton,” is more unanswerable than all the cordiality of half the boisterous friends, who beg and pray, and say all the kind thoughts that they can think of.
We had heaps of people the first part of my visit: Lievens, Talleyrand, Madame de Dino, Lady Stanhope, Palmerston371 and Mahon, George, Lionel Ashley, Fordwich, and William Cowper (who is a great dear), and heaps of people who acted and danced, and it was all very pleasant.
People are wonderfully clever, I think, and as for Talleyrand I doat upon him. I have been dining with him since at his own house, and elsewhere, and could listen to him for any number of hours. There are weak moments in which I think him handsome, just as it used to cross my mind sometimes whether the Chancellor was not good-looking – decidedly pleasanter to look at than that young Bagot, who walks up Regent Street quite miserable that it is not wide enough for the crowds that he thinks are looking at him.
My last week at Panshanger I was alone with the family, which is always pleasant. I do like Lady Cowper’s society so particularly; in short, I like her. She may have a great many faults, but I do not see them, and it is no business of mine anyhow; and so everybody may reproach me for it if they please, but I am very fond of her.
As for your plan for me – kind of you, but it won’t do at all. He was there all the time, and I left him there, and he always honours me with great attention, but by the blessing of Providence I do not take to him at all. I am too old to marry,372 and that is the truth. Lady Cowper remained convinced of that fact, and told me one day that if I were younger I should be less quick-sighted to Lord M.’s373 faults, which is true enough. I do not think him half so pleasant as Sir Frederick,374 whom I met the time before, and probably just as wicked, and he frightens me and bewilders me, and he swears too much. However, we ended by being very good friends, which is creditable under the circumstances, and though I am sure it is very kind of my friends to wish me married, and particularly kind that anybody should wish to marry me, yet I think now they may give it up, and give me credit for knowing my own happiness. “We know what we are, but not what we may be,” as somebody says, Ophelia I believe; and I know that I am very happy now, and have been so for some years, and that I had rather not change. If I change my mind I shall say so without shame, but at present I am quite contented with my position in life and only wish it may last. If I were younger, or less spoiled than I have been at home, I daresay I could put up with the difficulties of a new place; but not now. I cannot be blind to the faults of the few men I know well, and though I know many more faults in myself, yet I am used to those, you know, and George is used to them, and it all does beautifully. But in a new scene it might fail.
I can derive but little vanity from Lord Melbourne’s admiration. I stand very low in the list of his loves, and as for his thinking well of my principles, it would be rather hard if he did not, considering the society he lives in. And he has found out that I am not clever. I like him for that, and for saying so.
Lord Alvanley is utterly ruined again, has given up everything, and his creditors allow him £1200 a year. Poor Colonel Russell375 leaves £35,000 of debt. What horrid lives of difficulty those men must lead.
We settled in town a week ago, as the drives from Greenwich were becoming cold and dark for George. There are several people in town I know. Maria is looking very well and seems pleased and contented – neither in great spirits, nor otherwise.
We have seen Colonel Arden very often lately; he and Mr. Warrender having been kept in town for the hopeless purpose of arranging Lord Alvanley’s affairs. I suspect dear Alvanley is after all little better than a swindler. He writes beautiful letters to Lord Skelmersdale, one of his trustees, and says he feels he deserves all the misery he is suffering, which misery consists in sitting in an arm-chair from breakfast till dinner-time cracking his jokes without ceasing. He has taught his servant to come into the room and ask what time his Lordship would like the carriage, and what orders he has for his groom, because he thinks it sounds cheerful, though he has neither carriage nor horses. But it looks better. When Brooke Greville was describing to him the beautiful gilding of his house in Hill Street, which is a wonderful concern, Lord Alvanley said, “My dear Brooke, if you would carve a little more, and gild a little less, it would be a more hospitable way of going on.” Yours ever
E. E.
Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister
GREENWICH PARK,Thursday evening, April 18, 1832.
MY DEAREST THERESA, I should not much wonder if you were coming to the crisis; that feeling so well is suspicious. Never mind; “all things must have their end,” as Isabella says in the Tragedy, and “all things must have their beginnings,” as your child376 will probably say if you will give it an opportunity. I quite forgot to mention to you to let it be a girl, I like girls best. I see Mrs. Keppel, to save all disputes, has brought both a boy and girl into the world; but that is such an expensive amusement, you would not like that. If it is a boy, you ought to call it Arlington377 as a delicate attention to Mr. Lister. I mention these little elegant flatteries out of regard to your domestic peace, as from various observations I have lately been driven to make amongst my acquaintances, I do not think wives pay half enough attention to their husbands, though this does not apply to you.
Yes, as you say, that division is satisfactory to Lord Grey,378 but still if there were a shadow of an excuse for making a dozen Peers without affronting two dozen who are made, I should be glad.
The division was a pleasing surprise to me. I had been awake since four that night, and at last had settled that George must have come home and gone to bed, and that nobody had voted for us but just the Cabinet Ministers, and then I heard the house-door bang, and knew by the way in which he rushed up stairs how it was. Now it is over, and that our enemies have not triumphed, I am left with a sort of wish – that is, not a wish, but an idea – that it might have ended (just for fun) the other way. I should so like to know what would have come next. It is all so like a game at chess, and I was anxious to know how Lord Grey would get out of check. However, I am delighted with the game as it is; only it would have been a curious speculation, wouldn’t it? I see we are to have longer holidays, which makes me dote upon them all, both Greys and Salisburys, for so arranging it, and George is enchanted with it. He comes to-morrow, which is good for my gardening tastes and bad for my church-going habits.
There are lectures at the church every evening by an excellent preacher, and when George is in town, Fanny and I dine early and go to them. But I behaved so ill last night. I was shown into a large pew, a voiture à huit places, where there were seven old ladies, highly respectable and attentive, and four of us sat opposite to the other four. The clergyman, the curate of the parish, made a slight allusion to his superior officer, the rector, who happens to be ill, and made a commonplace remark on his own inferiority, etc., whereupon one of the old ladies began to cry. The next, seeing that, began to cry too, and so it went all round the pew, but so slowly that the last did not begin to cry till a quarter of an hour at least after she had heard of the rector’s illness, and till the sermon was fairly directed against some of the difficulties of St. Paul. Their crying set me off laughing, and you know what a horrid convulsion that sort of suppressed laughter, which one feels to be wrong, turns into. I hope they thought I was crying.
Our hyacinths are too lovely; quite distressing to see how large and double they are, because they will die soon. If they were only single, poor little wretches, it would not signify their lasting so short a time. I think the great fault of the garden is the constant flurry the flowers are in. Perhaps you have not found that out, but fancied they were quiet amusements; but that is an error. They either won’t come up at all, or they come at the wrong time, and the frost and the sun and the rain and the drought all bother them. And then, the instant they look beautiful, they die. I observe that a genuine fancier, like George, does not care a straw for the flower itself, but merely for the cutting, or the root, or the seed. However, I must say he contrives always to have quantities of beautiful flowers, hurrying on one after the other.
God bless you, dearest. I have not much to say, but my sisters all tell me to write just before they lie-in – that anything does for an amusement then; so I suppose it is right. Shall I have “Arlington” to-morrow, do you think? Your most affectionate
E. E.
Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister
GREENWICH,Friday evening, 1832.
DEAREST THERESA, I shall be charmed to see you any day you like, the sooner the better. Two or three stray people have suggested themselves for various days next week, but I am not sure who are the people, or what days they mean to come. I do not mean anything pert to George, but if he has a fault, it happens to be a total disregard of all notes and messages confided to him. However, I do not know of anybody coming that you would think objectionable. I should have suggested Monday because, as Caroline Montagu (Lord Rokeby’s sister) is coming to pass the day with Fanny, she might have brought you, and returned you, which you would probably prefer; but then what is to become of Mr. Lister? George cannot be here, and though you and I going one way, and Fanny and her Caroline the other, and all meeting for dinner would do very nicely, Mr. Lister would be bored out of his life. But any day you please will suit me, so as you can let me know in time to cook a bit of vittals for you.
I went to town yesterday to see Maria379 and do my congratulations, and I passed a long time with her, and am quite satisfied that she is unfeignedly happy and that she really likes him. Sir Joseph380 cannot control his joy at all, and was very amusing with his account of his own manner to Lord Grey and of Lord Grey’s to him. That angel of a man Charles Greville381 (quite a new light to see him in) gave himself a degree of trouble that astounded me to procure places for us to see Taglioni382 last night, and he succeeded in fixing us in Devon’s box with the Harrowbys and found us a carriage – in short, there never was anything so good-natured. So we stayed and saw her, and drove down here after it was over.
What a wonderful invention she is. I am satisfied now that she is not a mere live woman; but probably she is, as she insinuated in the ballet La Sylphide. Monsieur de Voisins sat next to us, and his ecstacies and Bravos, and the rapturous soliloquies he indulged in, have left me with a strong impression of his domestic felicity. To be sure, it is a miracle in our favour, that there should be a man in the world, who is enchanted to see his wife flying about a theatre with no cloathes on, and that that individual should have married Taglioni! Your ever affect.
E. E.
Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister
GREENWICH PARK,Thursday evening, July 2, 1832.
DEAREST THERESA, I found your note when we came home late last night from Richmond, where we had been to pass the day and dine with the G. Lamb’s; consequently your party was dispersed and you were in a sweet sleep before I knew you had been “at home,” and I was in a sweet sleep too, five minutes after I got home, and shall be so again, I hope, as soon as I have sealed this note. These days in the country are wholesome in that respect. We came here very early this morning, did our Churches like good Christians, and have given a dinner like Ditto, for we have a highly conservative party down here, at least what would have been conservative if, as my housekeeper justly observed about the gooseberries, the season for conserving was not gone by.
We have had the Jerseys, Lord Villiers, Lord Carnarvon, and dear C. Baring-Wall, besides the smart tassel of young Jersey children. George was as happy as a King with all his old friends, so I am delighted they came, and after all Lady Jersey is very good-humoured.
Lord Carnarvon383 has a pouting-pigeon way of talking, which is rather amusing, but upon the whole I find Tories rather less lively, or perhaps a shade more dull, than Whigs. They growl more, and do not snap in that lively way I should have expected. However, I am no judge: “man delights not me nor woman either,” as dear Hamlet had the candour to observe. He had seen something of society. I daresay he longed to be left to his flowers and his Chiswick, and a comfortable chair under the portico. To be sure his father made a bad business of sleeping in the garden, but then it could not have been so sweet or so full of flowers as ours.
We go back to town to-morrow afternoon, but I begin to see the time coming when we shall settle here. I wish you would take to treat yourself entirely as a sick person for a fortnight. But you won’t, so there is no use saying anything about it. Your ever affectionate
E. E.
Viscount Melbourne 384 to Miss Eden
WHITEHALL,August 13, 1832.
MY DEAR MISS EDEN, Many thanks for your kind enquiries. I have been laid up for a day or two, but am much better, and in tearing spirits, which is always the consequence of being laid up. Abstinence from wine and regularity of diet does me much more good than the malady does me harm.
I hope I shall get into the country soon, for I quite pine for it. Robert, I am told, is the only man in Hertingfordbury who has registered. Has Lady Francis written to him for theological arguments? I understand that she has been simply defeated in religious dispute by an Atheist of the neighbourhood – a shoemaker, or something of that sort – and has been seeking everywhere for assistance. The man argued for Natural Philosophy for so long, that she was not prepared to controvert.
Do not the Malignants pour somewhat less malignance, or are they more irritated than ever? Adieu. Yours faithfully,
MELBOURNE.
Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister
Wednesday [December 1832].
DEAREST THERESA, I had meant to have written you a long letter, but have been interrupted in a thousand ways till it is too late; but perhaps a line will be better than nothing. I was so much obliged to you for writing me that long letter. It told me exactly all I wanted to know about you – your health, your feelings, and also the little particulars I have no means of ascertaining. I never had courage to ask Mr. Villiers even how you are. Don’t you know the difficulty there is of approaching even in the slightest degree the subject that one is most anxious about, and as the surface with him is quite calm, I am always careful not to venture even on a word that might disturb it. He and Mr. Edward Villiers dined here yesterday. George is very anxious to have your George here as much as possible, and thought they had better come for their Christmas dinner as their own family is away, so he asked them both, and I was very glad to renew my acquaintance with Edward, though in some respects, from likeness of voice and manner, which probably you would not be aware of, it was painful to see those two come into the room together.
However, they must be a great comfort to each other. I never saw my brother George so occupied with another person’s grief as he is in this instance. He is asking and thinking every day what can be done for Mr. Villiers.385 God knows there is nothing; but still I always recollect that in those horrid times of trial, affection from anybody is soothing, if it is nothing more, so I am glad when it is shown.
I was at Oatlands when your letter came, and Lady Charlotte [Greville], who is a kind-hearted person I always think, was most anxious to know all about you and Mrs. Villiers. I thought her very well, all things considered. Lady F.386 seemed to me particularly out of spirits, and all her letters have been so since her father’s death. I imagine, that in addition to any other trials, they are in some trouble about their affairs, or that Lord F. thinks so, and makes himself unhappy, which troubles her.
The Gowers have taken Bridgewater House off their hands. Maria Howick is come back from the North. Everybody talks of her low spirits and constrained manner. Though I do not think her in high spirits, I do not think I see much difference in her. She is probably timid with her new family and her new position, but whenever I see her alone I am quite convinced she does not think herself unhappy, and when she is quite at her ease again I think other people will think so too.
God bless you, my darling Theresa, I will write again in a few days. Your ever affectionate
E. E.
Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister
GROSVENOR STREET,Thursday, December 1832.
MY DEAREST THERESA, I fear that Lord Ribblesdale’s387 death must be to you and Mr. Lister an additional grief, as I recollect you were fond of her, and she seems to have had not the slightest warning of this calamity. It was very kind of Mr. Lister to write to me, for I was in a state of great anxiety about your health and with no near means of hearing anything about you. What can I say to you, dearest? My love for you and my deep, deep pity for your bereavement you cannot doubt, and as for any attempt at consolation, who can be sure that even with the kindest intentions, they may not aggravate the grief they wish to soothe. I always felt in calamity that though I seemed to want kindness from everybody, yet that all they did was like the work of surgeons, the most skilful made the pain of the wound more evident; and I think I may hurt you if I dwell on your loss, or seem neglectful if I do not, and yet I know so well all you must be feeling.
I was reading yesterday a book of extracts, etc., that I wrote when I lost my own darling brother.388 As there were several things in it that I thought you might like, and though I did not want anything to remind me of feelings that seem as true on that subject as they were years ago, yet it made me better able to follow you in your present hours of trial and to know what you are going through. With a mother, husband, and child with you, and all the rest of your family, whom you love so dearly, assembled about you, you have more earthly support than many can have to look to; and the consolations of religion none are more likely to find than yourself. Indeed, that is a subject on which I think a stranger intermeddleth not, for God alone can comfort the heart He has cast down, and He, I trust, forgives the repinings which He alone knows.
I wish you would make the exertion of writing one line to me. I love you very dearly, and never feel it more than when you are in grief. Your affectionate
E. E.
Miss Eden to Lady Charlotte Greville
(At Oatlands, Weybridge),December 24, 1832.
MY DEAR LADY CHARLOTTE, …London is so particularly thick and sloppy that it would not surprise me if I slipped out of it again soon.
I have got that invitation to Panshanger I wanted, but as I would rather not go into Hertfordshire till the ball season is over, that will do later, and Eastcombe is open again now.
I am broken-hearted about the Essex election, and the only gleam of cheerfulness I have had has been occasioned by half a sheet of notepaper which I filled with the beginning of my new novel. I wrote nearly a sentence and a half which I composed in two days. Mr. Sale, the singer, called here this morning, which he often does, and used to give me lessons gratis, which was kind but tiresome. To-day he could not, because there is no pianoforte in the house, so we talked about Mrs. Arkwright’s389 songs, which he says he teaches to numbers of his scholars (there is no end to his pupils). But there are great faults in the scientific parts of her compositions, which he could correct in five minutes – in short, he talks of a mistake in counterpoint as we do of breaking one of the Commandments, and when I said she was a great friend of mine, he said he should be quite delighted to correct anything she sent to the Press, and always without touching the “air,” and he was very polite about it. Do you think it would affront Mrs. Arkwright if I asked her, or that she would not take it as it was meant, as a kindness, from such a lump of science as Sale is? Shall I ask her? Yours affectionately,
E. E.
Hon. Mrs. Norton 390 to Lord Auckland
[July 1833.]
DEAR LORD AUCKLAND, As you are the only person in your family who have not “cut” me, perhaps you will allow me to apologise through you, to your Sister, for my rudeness last night.
Say that, as far as concerns her, I consider my conduct on that occasion vulgar and unjustifiable, and that I beg her pardon. Yesterday was a day of great vexation and fatigue – which of course is no excuse in the eyes of strangers (whatever it may be in my own), for rudeness and want of temper. I am very sorry. My apology may be of no value to her; but it is a satisfaction to me to make it. Yours truly,
C. NORTON.
Lady Campbell to Miss Eden
October 25, 1833.
DEAREST EMMY, Eleven years ago we were together. To-day is Edward’s birthday, and I still see that house in Cadogan Place, and the window at which I sat watching for you, my own dear Friend. I like to think how long we’ve loved each other without a shade of alteration between us; du reste, I need dwell on such things to smooth my mind after other rugged bits of life. Your godchild391 is a good, peaceable, fat lump, with black eyelashes and a pretty mouth, which is all I can make out of her yet.
I recovered tolerably well the first fortnight, since that I have been but poorly. Anxiety and worry keep me back. However, it is all over now, for our matters are pretty nearly arranged. Sir Guy sells out; it is our only resource; it is the only way of paying what we owe, getting rid of debt…
I conclude you are now sitting with your own goldfish under your fig-tree, you who live under the shadow of your own old Men.392 By the bye, with your blue pensioners, I am sure you will feel for us in the dispersion of our red pensioners. There was a great cry heard in the Hospital, Kilmainham weeping for her old men, because they are no longer to be! However, they are respited, for my enemy Ellice393 put his pen through their existence, and Mr. Littleton394 too, and ordered even the fashion of their dispersion, but forgot to enquire particulars, and they have stumbled upon an Act of Parliament, and so must wait till another Act breaks through it. Ellice dropped his pen, and was obliged to pick it up again. Your affectionate
PAMELA CAMPBELL.
Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister
GREENWICH PARK,Sunday, December 15, 1833.
DEAREST THERESA, I have just had a letter from your brother George,395 and though probably you heard from him by the same opportunity, yet it is always a pleasure to know that one’s brothers are heard of by others as well as oneself. It makes assurance doubly sure, which that clever creature Shakespeare knew was not once more than enough, in this unsure world.
Mr. V. seems very happy and very well, and will probably be more personally comfortable when he is the owner of a few tables and chairs. It was such a relief off my mind (as a friend of mine says when anything is a relief to her mind) to find that he had received an enormous letter I wrote to him some time ago, a thing like the double sheet of the Times in private life, and which had been so long unacknowledged, that I felt sure that it had been captured, and that I should see a horrible garbled translation of it copied from a Carlist paper, and headed “Intercepted Correspondence,” whereupon I must simply have changed my religion, gone into a convent, and taken the veil. The propriety of my letters surpasses all belief, so I should not have been ashamed in that sense; but when I write to your brother, or to Lord Minto, or to that class of correspondents, I always rake together every possible anecdote and fact – or what is called a fact – and write them all down just like a string of paragraphs in a newspaper. I always suppose nonsense would bore them, so the horrid letters are made up of proper names, and if there is an unsafe thing in the world to meddle with it is a proper name, and that is the bother of a letter that goes abroad, particularly to such a country as Spain. I saw George was just as fussy about a letter he had written to your brother; but now we know our little manuscripts have found their way safely, we mean to write again – at least I do, the first time I find anything to say. At present I am out of that article.