Miss Eden's Letters

[Miss Villiers, who had been so much admired and the centre of attraction in her circle at Kent House, now became engaged to Mr. Lister of Armitage Park. They were married in November 1830. Mr. Lister was described by one of his contemporaries as “a refined and accomplished gentleman with literary tastes.”]

Miss Eden to Miss VilliersBROADSTAIRS,Wednesday, September 1830.

MY DEAREST THERESA, How idle I have been about writing, have not I? But then Hyde349 told me about the daily packets that he forwarded from Staffordshire and from Devonshire, and so I thought in the bustle I should not be missed, and the real truth is I have been very unsettled the last ten days. George and I went to Hertfordshire to see Mary Eden before her confinement, and from the bore of moving, put it off so long that we came in at last for the beginning of her catastrophe. She was in the greatest danger, poor thing, at last, but thank God is quite safe now, and her boy350 too.

We went to pass a morning with Lady F. Lamb at Brocket, and saw a great deal of the Panshanger tribe. The Ashleys are as happy as I suppose the Listers mean to be, only I think you must be a shade less demonstrative. Lord Ashley seems to do amazingly well with all the uncles and brothers, and Lady Cowper dotes (or doats, which is it?) on him.

We came back to Greenwich for one day, and then with the utmost courage, the greatest magnanimity, Fanny and I stepped into a Margate steamboat and set off on a visit to Mrs. Vansittart at Broadstairs. George stood on the steps of Greenwich Hospital, left, like Lord Ullin, “lamenting.” We were so late we could with difficulty persuade the steamer to take us in; but at last we boarded her and took her. To my utter surprise I was not the least sick.

This is a nice little place. We know nobody here but Lady G. de Roos,351 and she is in the same predicament, so we see a great deal of each other.

Caroline ought I believe to account for 14 children, but she has somehow contrived to disperse and get rid of all of them but two very small things of five and six. I ask no questions. I hope the others are all safe somewhere, and in the meantime she is remarkably well and happy. We have a room apiece, and one for our maid, and she must have been terribly afraid we should be bored by the quantity of excursions she has planned for us. We have been to Margate and Ramsgate, and are to go to Dover, and if George comes, perhaps to Calais. But that I think foolhardy. To-day she and Fanny are gone sailing off to some famous shell place. I prefer dry land, if it is the same thing to everybody, so I stayed at home, and I have a fit of sketching on me that amounts to a fever. The day is too short. I am so glad we like being here so much, which sounds like a foolish sentence, but Caroline really has been so kind and active in arranging everything and was so bent on making us come, and is so hospitable now we are here, that I should have been doubly sorry if it had turned out a failure. I was only sorry to leave George, but perhaps he will come and fetch us.

The day we went through London to Hertfordshire your George went to the play with us, and I was afraid we should have to carry him out. He went into strong hysterics at the Bottle Imp, which is certainly one of the most amusing things I ever saw.

Maria352 wrote so kindly and affectionately to me about your marriage. You would have been pleased with her letter. And old Lansdowne wrote also in such terms about both of you and his delight at the marriage of two people he liked so much, that I do not see why we should not always meet you at Bowood, except the fear that Mr. L.’s domestic peace may be endangered. People were talking of the possibility of a revolution in England the other day, and what they should do for their livelihoods, and Lord Alvanley said, “If it comes to that I know what I shall do; keep a disorderly house and make Glengall my head waiter.” That is a bad story to end with, but I have no time for a better.

Two more letters to write; and a lovely day and fine autumnal weather makes me so happy I cannot bear to lose a moment of it. Ever your most affectionate

E. E.Miss Eden to Lady Charlotte GrevilleThursday, October 1830.

MY dear Lady Charlotte, Your note reached me only yesterday, as it made a little detour to Middleton in search of George; but with all that delay it was the first intelligence I had of Lady F.’s353 safety. The Morning Herald never mentions anything pleasant, and Charles Drummond, whom I had charged to make due enquiries of Mr. H. Greville, of course forgot it. How glad I am she has a girl at last!354 I think we all deserve some credit for it, for all her friends have gone on day by day so duly wishing for a young lady for her, that I cannot but think we may have great pride in the result. It is unknown the trouble Lady G. de Roos and I gave ourselves about it all the time we were at Broadstairs. My sisters, who are learned in those matters, assured me Lady F. would have a girl this time, she was so long about it. Did you know that girls, with that tact and penetration we all have, shew a greater reluctance to coming into this bad world than boys do, who are always ready for any mischief? Girls put off coming into this world as long as they possibly can, knowing what a difficult life it is. Just mind, as you are on the spot, that this little concern is like its Mama. I should like her to be exactly the same, should not you?

We enjoyed our Broadstairs so very much, and all the more, because it was not Ramsgate. I took the look of Ramsgate in great aversion. We knew nobody at Broadstairs but Lady G. de Roos, who was without her husband, and therefore very glad to be a great deal with us. The quiet and dowdiness of Broadstairs is a great charm. We were out all day, sketching or poking about for shells. I wonder whether you went to Shellness, a little creek whose shores are covered with shells – not a stone or a bit of sand – all shells. I never saw such a curious place. We made one long expedition to Dover, and if ever I went to the sea on my own account, I mean not on a visit to anybody, I should pitch my tent at Dover. It is so very beautiful and so cheerful looking. We stayed a fortnight at Broadstairs.

George seems to have a very diplomatic party at Middleton: Esterhazy,355 Talleyrand,356 Madame de Dino, the expectation of the Duke of Wellington, etc., etc. Colonel Anson, I suppose you know, has ascertained that he has £15,000 less than nothing, which would be an uncomfortable property to settle on, and Lord Anson says he can do nothing for him but give him a living. If he ends by taking orders, I think Thorpe will find his congregation fall off considerably; there will be such a press to hear that popular preacher Anson.

Lady Cowper has written to ask us to Panshanger next week, but I believe George will not be able to go; he has a shooting-engagement in another direction. However, till he comes back from Middleton, I do not know. I am not ambitious to move again, as we must so soon go to that vile London for that foolish Parliament, and our little garden is so full of flowers, and gives so much occupation in collecting seeds and making cuttings, that I grudge leaving it, even for a day. In all the reproaches that are lavished on these Ministers, I wonder nobody has ever written a biting pamphlet on their only real fault, which is bringing us all to London the end of October – a sort of tyranny for which a Minister would have been impeached in better days. I am dreadfully at a loss for some political feelings. I cannot find anybody to wish for, and, upon the whole, am in the miserably dull predicament of rather hoping things may remain as they are. I suppose that mean Huskisson set are coming in, which is unpleasant, but as they were sure to fourrer themselves in somehow or anyhow, I am prepared for it. I never hear from Maria. I suspect they are bored at Sprotbro’, as she is always silent when she is bored.

My best love to Lady F. with my entire approbation of her conduct about this little girl. Ever your affectionate

E. E.Miss Eden to Mrs. ListerGREENWICH PARK,Thursday evening, November 1830.

MY DEAREST THERESA, It is particularly clever of me to write to you to-night, because it does so happen that there is not a pen in the house and the shops are all shut. There was one pen this morning, but I suppose dear Chiswick has ate it. That comes of having stationery for nothing; as long as we had to pay for it, I had heaps of pens and paper. George357 has found a quill in one of the drawers, and I, who never could mend a real ready-made pen, have cut this raw material, this duck’s feather, into an odd-shaped thing. But it marks pretty well, only it is great fatigue to drive it along, because I could not make a slit in it.

I want to know if you and Mr. Lister cannot come and dine with us while we are here. I never should have thought of asking anybody in such weather, but I had offers from three friends this morning to come here next week, so that it is quite allowable to ask all my other friends. I daresay you did not think I had above three in the world, but I have.

When will you come? I know you can’t the beginning of next week, because I have just had a note from Lady Salisbury asking us to meet you at Hatfield, but after that perhaps you can come. We cannot go to Hatfield. The Chancellor358 has offered to take me to the Lord Mayor’s dinner on Monday, and I think it will be amusing and mean to accept.

Sarah Sophia359 says she proposes to take her food here on Tuesday. She never allows us an option. I wonder when it will be time to quarrel with her about politics or something else? Is not it due to ourselves to have some explanations with her? I do not know what about, but a note or two ought to pass, first dignified and then pathetic, and then end with a dinner. I have no idea of the dinner without the explanation first. She has treated everybody but us with one.

My garden is very flourishing and I have had the delight of sowing seeds to a great amount since Monday. I wish gardening were not so fatiguing. I like it so very much, but I am dead tired every night, and moreover there has been a reform in our Society for visiting the Poor, and they have changed our plan of visiting, and given me a district at the farthest end of the town. A mile off at the least. Such a bore, and I have quite a new set of people to make acquaintance with. However, the acquaintance is soon made. I visited eight poor women this morning, and they had each had ten children, and had “buried the last, thank God, last year,” and they had all had beds to sleep on once, but had pledged them for rent, and they all could get nothing from the parish, and they generally ended with, “and if it would please God to take my poor old man, I could go home comfortably to my own parish.” “But is your husband ill?” I asked. “No, Ma’am, not particular ill, but it may please God to take him and then I can go home.” I can see how extreme distress must destroy all affection, and how those very poor people must think that their children who die young, have made a great escape. You cannot imagine the misery of these pensioners’ wives. The husbands are well taken care of in every respect, but the wives have actually nothing. We seldom find above one in three with bedding or any furniture whatever. We are shamefully well off, Theresa. I always think of that frightful parable, “Remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things,” etc. It is an ugly thought, is it not? And we have so many good things. I am always so happy here that it frightens me. So good-night, I am sleepy and will not think about it. Your most affectionate

E. E.Miss Eden to Mrs. ListerPARK LODGE, GREENWICH,Wednesday [end of November 1830].

DEAREST THERESA, I shall take it as a great compliment being asked to dinner anywhere by anybody, but as a matter of choice I should prefer dining with the Lord Mayor habitually – not from any gourmandise, I beg to mention, for in my days I never saw such uneatable food. The soup had been saved, I imagine, from the day that the King did not dine at the Guildhall, and consequently a little salt had been thrown in every day just to preserve it. The preservation had been effected, but how many pounds of salt had been used it is difficult to guess. Nobody offered me anything else but a slice of half-cold peacock, whose tail feathers were still spread and growing. However, though as mere dinner it was a failure, the flow of soul was prodigious. We were so unanimous, so fond of each other. Dear Don Key360 himself in such spirits, and Mrs. Key and all the small bunch of Keys so polite and attentive. “What curious creatures we are,” as that old Machy in Destiny361 (have you read it?) keeps observing; and all the forms of civic life are more curious than the rest. The Lady Mayoress receives all her guests without stirring from her chair, though it is obvious from her old habit of attending to her shop that she is dying to get up to serve them all. The Lord Mayor walks in to dinner before all his visitors, leaving the Duke of Sussex,362 etc., to take care of themselves, and then he and his wife sit by each other without the relief of a third person. Their domestic felicity has, I fear, received a check for life, because every time Key got up to speak his sword hitched in his wife’s blonde, which, of course, was very unpleasant. It made the blonde all fuzzy. However, he is a good Lord Mayor, and so polite to His Majesty’s Ministers that they were some of them in agonies of fright he was going to propose all their healths individually, and it was only prevented by Lord Grey’s363 getting up from dinner before one-third of the toasts had been given. That sort of audience is very alarming, I believe. Lord Grey said he never felt so frightened in his life, and Lord Lansdowne, whom I sat next to, told me that if his health came next, he had not an idea what was to be done. He felt sure he could not say a word. I quite understood it. An audience of ladies whom they all knew well, and who were all likely to laugh, besides 500 other people all staring at them as a show, must be rather trying.

It was great fun to see the Chancellor looking demure and shy while he was loué vif by the Lord Mayor. He is very amusing with his popularity. Of course we were rather late at the Mansion House. The Chancellor always is five minutes too late everywhere. However, we arrived in solitary grandeur after all the other carriages had gone away, and were received with unbounded applause by the mob. I wonder which of us they meant to approve of. I am disappointed in the magnificence of the city. The whole set-out is mesquin to the greatest degree. Nothing but common blue plates and only one silver fork apiece, which those who were learned in public dinners carefully preserved. I lost mine in the first five minutes. The city ladies are so ill-dressed too; such old gowns with black shoes, etc. I went back to Grosvenor Street at eleven, moulted my feathers and changed my gown, and got home at twelve.

George had a holiday yesterday, and worked in the garden from breakfast till dinner. You have no idea what a good collection of plants we are making. We quarrel very much about the places in which they are to be put, and pass the evenings in tart innuendoes about my Eccremocarpus which you liked, and my Ipomaea seed which you sowed, and which has never come up. But the general result is great amusement.

I do not think four horses will be able to drag me back to town; I like this so much better. Your brother George wrote me word he had the gout. Ever your affectionate

E. E.Miss Eden to Mrs. ListerGROSVENOR STREET,Monday [November 1830].

MY DEAREST THERESA, I was not at all in the mood to write, and was almost glad you did not write to me because of that dreadful bore of an answer which you would expect; and I have been so very ill! Besides that, I have been a fortnight at Eastcombe tête-à-tête with Sister, and forbidden to speak on account of my dear little lungs which had been coughed to atoms, so conversation did not give me much help to a letter. Moreover, they gave me all sorts of lowering medicines – hemlock and henbane, or words to that effect (I never can remember the names of drugs) – and made me so languid that the weight of a pen was a great deal too much for my delicate frame. However, I believe they have nearly cured me, and it does not signify now it is over, though I still think that if there were an inflammation on the chest to be done, it would have been more for the general good that O’Connell364 should have it instead of me. Anything to silence that dreadful tongue of his, which is frightening the Isle from its propriety most rapidly. They say that he said to Lord Anglesey365 at one of his levées, “I shall give you some trouble yet, My Lord,” to which Lord A. answered, “Yes, I know you will, but I shall hang you at last.” It is a neat dialogue, and the story is a good one, and certainly would have been true if O’Connell had been at a levée. As he has not, there is of course no foundation for it, but we can believe it all the same.

Barring Ireland, which I do not fret about, because we have been in the habit of conquering it once in every thirty years and it is time now for a fight, things are looking more prosperous. Our revenue they say is good, and our manufactories are flourishing to the highest possible degree. George saw some of the silk people on Saturday, who told him that several of the great silk houses had refused to take any more orders, having as much to do as they can this year. Birmingham is very busy; the wool trade is in the greatest prosperity; in short, if Parliament were never to meet again, if that were to be the reform Lord Grey would propose, we should do very well.

It is very unlucky that we never can have what we want all at once. If corn is plentiful, there is not a morsel of loyalty to be had for love or money, and when the market for wool is good, morals are at their lowest pitch.

I was rather sorry to come home again, for when I am out of town I forget all my party feelings; but I was obliged to come back as soon as I was strong enough, for George has not a chance of getting out of town even for a day.

Have you seen the 2nd Volume of Lord Byron? It is a wicked book, and having made that avowal it is unlucky that I feel myself obliged to own that it is much the most interesting book I ever read in my life – much. I never was so amused, and the more wickeder he is in his actions, the more cleverer he is in his writings. I am afraid I like him very much – that is I cannot bear him really, only I am glad he lived, else we should not have had his Life to read, to say nothing of his poetry. He had some good points; such extreme gratitude to anybody who ever showed him kindness; and if he had lived I still think that he would have been converted, and that once a Christian, there is nothing great or good he would not have been equal to. He had such magnificent talents – an archangel ruined – and I think he regretted the height from which he had fallen. Still the book is a bad book. I was obliged to stop yesterday and recall mes grands principes before I could remember that it was not wrong or ill-natured of Guiccioli to insist on his wife’s366 separation from Lord Byron. Moore talks about it as an unprincipled disturbance of Lord Byron’s domestic felicity, and with such earnestness, that he very nearly took me in.

I wish I had seen you act. Lord Castlereagh’s epilogue was in the papers, with a few lines added, not with a view of pleasing him. Your affectionate

E. E.

CHAPTER IX

1831-1835

Miss Eden to Mrs. ListerGREENWICH 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. Lister30 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.