Miss Eden's Letters

Her cloaths were preparing, in short, she was far on the road to France. Ogilvie arrives, Lucy downs upon her knees, to beg he will take her to Paris, and lo! he would have been delighted to take her, but he had given up the journey!

We all dropt in spirit like so many sacks, after the excitation of the morning.

We go to Town positively on the 27th of this month, God willing. Let me know whether the master of your destiny, your fate, George, brings you to Town. We shall be in Stratford Place, and about the beginning of next month I suppose the Chancellor will have us up. Pray how do you think we ought to dress the character, something of the sackcloth and ash nature?..

How do Fanny and Edward Drummond115 go on? I hope she still thinks him pleasant. Don’t rob her of those comfortable illusions, any bulwark against bore is a blessing.

Aunt has had the white Cock, the pride of the Dunghill killed, and Lucy has replaced him by a pair of stinking red-eyed rabbits. We have robberies going on on all sides. The thieving establishment is put upon the most liberal footing; they drive their cart, and keep their saddle-horses, and nobody seems inclined to disturb them.

I understand Stocks? Emmy, I have been making Mr. Ogilvie give me a lecture on Finance, but to-morrow I shall relapse into darkness. Nature has done much for you and me, but we are not organised for Stocks.

Miss FitzGerald to Miss EdenNovember 26, 1819.

We go to Town to-morrow, but too late to see you. I am so unhappy, my snug own home so clean, so warm, my life so humdrum, to-day walking in the footsteps of yesterday, all thrown over by going to that Babylon. If it was not for you, I should hang myself previous to my departure. Conceive my situation on finding myself to-morrow night, amidst the smoke and stir of that dim spot which men call Stratford Place, Nr. 2…

I had a kind note from Lady Lansdowne,116 I love her. Emmy, if you desire to keep a Grantham and four horses, I surely may have my Lansdowne and two!

I feel walking against the wind, which is the only way I can express the feeling one has in parts of one’s life when matters go contrary. We are coming up in truly Scriptural style, for we know not where we shall eat, and where we shall drink, nor wherewithal we shall be clothed.

December 17, 1819.– Emmy, the moon whistles, but why don’t you write? My trunk is gone forth and is now on its remote, unfriended, melancholy, and slow journey to Bowood, and drags at each remove a lengthening chain, and the weather is so bad, and so we are all very unhappy. Isn’t (I never know how to tittle that abbreviation, but to you my meaning is palpable) well to go on. Isn’t this a day for Crack-skull Common?

Miss FitzGerald to Miss EdenBOWOOD,Thursday, a great deal p.m., December 23, 1819.

MY DEAREST EMMY, I am safely arrived into this country, and as you have never peregrined into these parts, a few remarks, peradventure, a few remarks upon the nation Wiltshire may give you satisfaction. The Wilt117 is generally of noble disposition, kind of heart and of sound understanding. In person short of stature, thick set, square built, hath straight hair, and a pleasing aspect. In civility most laborious, insomuch there seems a wall of politeness which keepeth off better acquaintance in this tribe. The Wilt woman118 liveth bounden in subjection and loving obedience unto the husband, and filleth her time duly in catering and ordering for her household. The Wilt119 when young is ill-favoured, given unto the asking of questions, eager for food, and hath a harsh and unmusical voice. It is the custom to déjeune at the hour Ten. The Wilt doth eat, and read the signs of a large leaf showing the contests of the Two Tribes – the one having power that doth act foolishness, and the other which hath no power – speaking wisdom; and after breathing a word or two at intervals when the meal is ended, the Wilt will go unto his avocations and work with his brains, and then at about the hour Two, he eateth of a mixture of flour and water like unto cakes, and then doth go forth unto the exercising of his body in the way of quick walking, or managing of a small horse. At dinner the Wilt ordereth himself seemly, eateth of all things freely and slow, drinking moderately. He then adjourneth unto another part of the Habitation and doth talk of divers matters good and well spoken, rubbing his hands withal exceedingly; and after he hath drunk of a hot brown liquor, the women take their tools and do sew wearing apparel and are still, and the Wilt taketh a volume and doth lift up his voice and read. I do mention this because the custom is after the manner of this tribe peculiarly, and is regarded upon by other tribes as an abomination, inasmuch that one of the tribe of Dumont120 has been known to cover his countenance with a cloth when the same has been practical. I have been at some pains to get particulars of this form of idolatry to the god Bore, and have collected thus much: Bore is an evil spirit that, they reckon, commonly doth haunt empty places, but is more terrible when he doth infest crowded places. He doth possess people after the fashion of the Devils in Judaea, and hath, besides, a contagious property, it having been noted that one possessed will generally infect others. What a fool I am, Emmy dear! but I was so full of nonsense I was obliged to come and write to you, and such an ill-tempered pen too, that would go no way, not even its own. I am sure it came out of Lady Holland121 or the Dss of Bedford’s122 Wing!

I am very snug here as to my body, but I do want you to talk to beyond expression, and I cannot bear to think Lucy is missing me all this while. I have been over all my old walks here, and remembering all the corners and rooms and chairs and tables, so that I feel two years the younger. But I wonder how I got on at all without knowing you. Lady Lansdowne is in high favour with me. There is so much to like in her. Him of old I have always doated on, but I have sat with my extinguisher upon my head ever since I arrived, so that I fear, pleased as I am with them, the feeling is not reciprocal. I always shall love this place for having brought me acquainted with old Mary, for my liking to her was a sort of halfway-house to my affection for you.

I have not an idea who or when anybody is to come. I don’t care. You have lost the art of writing me good long letters. I desire you will mend. Goodbye, Dearie, God bless you. Tell me more. And believe me ever your own

PAM.

Emmy now, don’t let all my stupid jokes lay about, and don’t because you have nothing ready to say to Mary and Mr. Drummond, in an evil hour go and shew my letter. You know you have done such things, you animal. Remember, I will never write again if you play me this trick. I pour my nonsense into your trusty bosom only in confidence. If I must restrain my nonsense, what a bond of Friendship will be broken!

Miss FitzGerald to Miss EdenBOWOOD [1819].

That One Pound Bill is for the liquidation of the debt I contracted that morning in Town with you at a shop in Regent Street for value received of silk handkerchiefs, ribbons, etc… I am fallen in love with Mr. Abercromby.123 He is quite a darling, mouth and all. The first day I saw him I thought of your face and laughed; but we are now inseparable. He is so natural, so good-natured, and does love nonsense. You would delight in him. The Macdonalds have been here, and they are no loss. She is so very dull, oh dear! – and they are much too newly married to be fit for society… I take long walks with my dear Lord Lansdowne. Emmy, he is so good, and so knowledgeful, and so liberal, I think he is the most liberal man I ever met with at all, in taste as well as principle. And that is a great merit, for one knows where to have him. Emmy, don’t New Year’s days and all those milestones in one’s life make you very melancholy? They do me to a degree. I take some time shaking off the weight. Of course I won’t say a word of the Dromedaries [Drummonds] to any one, but I don’t see that you have any duty laying in that quarter, particularly as the more you see of them and go to Charing Cross, the more obligations they will imagine themselves bestowing on you.

CHAPTER III

1820-1825

Miss FitzGerald to Miss EdenBOWOOD,February, 1820.

HUSH, hush, Emmy, the King is dead,124 and we have entered a new reign, yes, yes, and George IV. has been proclaimed, and I have wondered what he’ll do with his wife, and Henry VII. would not let his Queen be crowned for two years, and Hume says so, and all the newspapers are very black, and the Times blacker than any, and there is an end of the topics and we know it all. Now to our old channel.

My hair is on tip-toe. I have heard with my outward ears to-day, that there hangs a possibility in Fate of my not getting home for a month. Not that I am uncomfortable here, but only I do so wish to see you again, my dearie, and poor dear Lu!125 It quite amounts to longing, or craving, or hunger, or thirst. It is so long since I have done out my heart and mind, it is all in a litter.

I enjoyed myself so very much indeed while your brother and Mr. Fazakerly were here. As for the others, I wished them hanged, for I had to make company to them, and they did not make amusement for me.

We are quite alone, and have been ever since Wednesday. After I have made breakfast, and Lord Lansdowne has engulphed as much Tea as he can carry, I take my mornings to myself and bask in the Library. I do not mean this as a figurative allusion to the sunshine of the mind, but that the room stands South, as all rooms should stand, or walk off. I then at about two, lunch, and see Lady Lansdowne for half-an-hour, take my walk till five, come in, and write an empty line to Lucy to while away her time.

Lady Lansdowne dines with us, goes to bed before eleven, and I stay on talking till near one with the Wilt. I do, I will like him, tho’ I have run very near hating him, that Wilt wise man! He goes next Monday to Woburn126 and Middleton127 on his way to Town, and Lord knows when it will please Providence we should follow.

Tell me something of Mary, and above all, tell me about yourself. Your last letter made me laugh so much! Do it again. I ever remain, your affectionate old

PAM.Miss FitzGerald to Miss EdenBOWOOD,February 10, 1820.

It is now settled we are to be in Town the 20th… We do not mean to be in London this year at all to remain, Emmy; it is not worth while. I need not say it to you, for we compared notes last year upon the emptiness of existence in that Town – gaiety as it is called. You will come to Thames Ditton, where we have the certainty of being comfortable together.

Lord Lansdowne set off to-day for Middleton. I miss him shockingly. He has crept into my affections in a wonderful degree these last ten days; I have pounded a little nonsense into him. Twice I made him laugh at jokes not worth repeating, and once at his own matter-of-fact method of understanding Fun: in short, our intimacy grew so thick he committed himself far enough to say that he was quite in a childish fidget to see his new Gallery and ceiling – much more anxious about that than about the Meeting of Parliament. And last night the agony he got into fancying he should want all the identical books in this library in Town, and which to take, and the sort of goodbye he bid the volumes, gave me hopes of him.

Emmy, you know the brother, William Strangways?128 He is a curious specimen. He certainly will pack himself up by mistake and send himself as a Fossil to the Geological Society some fine day. I rather like him, he is so good-natured, and so cram full of out of the way information. Another Brother arrived to-day, y-clept Giles.129 I know nothing of him, and am likely to remain in ignorance, as they go away to-morrow.

She and I get on charmingly. I like her more than I ever did, more than I ever thought I could love anybody who has the misfortune of not being one of us.

Miss FitzGerald to Miss EdenMarch, 1820.

Your letter gave me such delight, the laugh of other days came o’er my soul.

My dear, rums is ris, and sugars is fell. My cold is gone, but Aunt is sick, in short, barring myself who am very well thank you, the house is an Hospital.

Aunt has been quite ill, shut up, and the Apothecary busy, all over pocket handkerchiefs and Ipecacuanha.

All my neighbours far gone in liver complaints and buried in bile, so that I have kept aloof from all, when they did not want me, and we are so very, very quiet here, I almost fancy I must be grown deaf, for I suppose the world is still in a bustle, and going on. No letters, no murder, no crimes.

What a retention of correspondence this cessation of franks seems to have caused: when shall we see our wholesome days again?

Emkins, Holland will never do. Why? When, shall I see you? Why can’t you stay where you are? Your brother George is like an âme en peine; he can’t abide nowhere. I suppose you will like the junket, you Beast… So you have your Grantham.130 It is all very well we should allow those sort of people to love us, etc. but they must be kept in their place. How little I saw you in Town, and then you think it my fault and that I won’t dine with you. You don’t know, you cannot know, how I have been bothered about it, not by Aunt alone. In short, there is a bother in our celibacy, that as there is no one to speak as one having authority, the whole herd think they have a right to have a pull at one’s tether, and pin one down to their own fancies…

Emmy, only think Danford is going to-day! A woeful day that such a Dan should go.

There’s been a grand inventory to do, and glass and china, etc. Aunt was aghast at the mortalities among the rummer glasses. He denied having crackt their noble hearts, when, oh Providence! oh, juste ciel! their glassy relics rose in judgment, and from the cupboard called for vengeance. There lay their bottoms, which, like the scalps of his enemies, had accumulated in evidence of his deeds. His wen grew pale when he thought of his wages. “Conceive his situation!” What a climacteric! Good-bye, write to me much and often, but if you don’t, never mind, for I know what London is.

I do long to see Matthews,131 so provoking the animal won’t begin his pranks before we leave London.

April, 1820.

…Poor Aunt gets no worse, but I see no great amendment… I assure you, Emmy, I take great care of myself; we only sit up every other night, and my spirits are quite good. I am screwed up like a machine, and get through day and night very quickly indeed. I eat and drink and laugh and don’t let myself think.

You must come again, when you can, to see me, Emmy. I have no scruple in asking you to come and see me in the fullness of my dullness, out of the fullness of your gaiety, because when we get together, we get into our element, my darling. Your visit quite refreshed me the other day. I send you some flowers to brighten up your room, and you will put them into the Christening bowls, which lie about your tables.

April 30, 1820.

I have given up the hopes of seeing you, nobody is going to Town, unless I take a cling to some carriage footboard as the beggar boys do. I have given up all prospects of bonnets for the future, and so have ordered one at Kingston.

I had an obliquity the other day, and awful longing to be in London for a leetle, a very leetle while. I tried and tried what you call to reason myself out of it, and I partly succeeded, but the getting out of that folly cost me a great deal, and made me rather rough and uncomfortable. Brushing up one’s reason is just as disagreeable as having one’s teeth cleaned, it sets one on edge for the while…

I am sure you will be obliged to me for telling you, that in a shower in London, a man was running along with an umbrella, and ran against another man, this latter offended man snatched the offending umbrella, out of the umbrellee’s hands, and throwing it away said, “Where are you running to like a mad mushroom?”

If Aunt gets better soon, I will go up in a week or two, and have a look at you, and get a hat. Your Leghorn sounds well, but I never yet found home brewed bonnets answer, they are always ill-disposed, full of bad habits, and get awkward crics about them. Good-bye.

Miss FitzGerald to Miss EdenMay, 1820.

I should have written directly to wish you joy of Mary’s job being so prosperously accomplished,132 but I have been keeping my bed. My cough has got such a grip of me, nothing does me good… What a fuss you must have been in I can but think. Was Mr. Drummond in a fuss? Well, it must be a great relief off your mind, and off hers too, poor dear. I suppose she is already doatingly fond of the little brute as if she had known it all her life… I have got a horrid cold and cough, and I look a beast of the first water, and of course, Edward [FitzGerald] has fixed this moment to come and see us. I expect him in two days, and he expects me in my present haggard, worn, water-gruel state of mind to amuse him and be sémillante. I, who am so low in words, I have not one to throw at a small dog.

Miss FitzGerald to Miss EdenJune, 1820.

I am quite so much better to-day, I entertain some hopes of prolonging my precarious existence a little longer. Company to dinner yesterday. Humbug and Bore kissed each other without truth or mercy. Why didn’t you come to me to-day? Come to-morrow for I have such a piece of nonsense for you.

EDINBURGH, August 12, 1820.

We sailed Tuesday and arrived this morning by 5 o’clock at Leith. Our journey was most prosperous and very amusing. Our Society of Passengers also kept me in great amusement. I must just mention that their meals amused me as much as any part of their proceedings. One poured whisky over cold pie for sauce, and one ate raspberry jam with bread and butter, all ate peas with their knives. We shall see the sights between this and Tuesday, when we go to Bonnington. Write to me my own Emmy, and direct at Lady Mary Ross,133 Bonnington, Lanark.

BONNINGTON, October 9, 1820.

…Your letter amused me. The geographical happiness which has befallen us in being born near one another is indeed inestimable. That horrible supposition of my being the amiable Laplander made me shudder. You always do hit the funniest ideas in the world. You darling, I require something to keep up my spirits, for if I don’t laugh I shall cry when I tell you it is more than probable I shall not see you till next May.

Mary Ross has put it into Aunt’s head that it would be the best plan in the world for us to pass the winter in the Isle of Bute. Living is for nothing. As this is a plan of economy I dare say nothing, but I am very unhappy, I am very unhappy indeed, for I feel my heart sink into my shoes when I think how long it may be before I again see you or any of you… We shall stay here till November, when we shall go to our little Bute. Our society there is likely to be confined to Mrs. Muir, the factor’s wife, a quick, lively, little body, I am told, which sounds awfully bustling and pert, an occasional King’s officer in search of smugglers, and the master of the steam-boat. I have liked Scotland upon the whole, in short I had determined to make the best of it, and one always partly succeeds in those cases, yet I don’t like the people; they are very hospitable, but du reste, they appear to me stubborn, opinionated, cold, and prejudiced. The women are either see-saw and dismal, or bustling and pert, and appear to me to be generally ignorant, which I did not expect, and the minute gossip they keep us is something I cannot describe.

Miss Eden to Miss Villiers. 134 GROSVENOR STREET, Monday [1820].

DEAREST THERESA, Please to write again directly to say how you are going on. I take your Grove135 to be equal to my Nocton136 in matter of bore, and that being the case, if one is to have an illness, one may as well have it at those houses. It fills up the time. My ague is subsiding, but I have fits of it occasionally and hate it very much. I had one yesterday, which even moved George’s strong heart to pity, though he has such a contempt for illness that I keep it all very snug. I am going to Langley to-day, and that is another thing which makes him so scrapey that I am writing in his room in order to talk him over in my most insinuating and winning manner between the sentences of my letter.

He and I go on such different tacks about town and country, that we make our plans, and talk them over for half-an-hour before I recollect that we are working for different aims. He thinks every day spent in the country by anybody who does not shoot is so much time wasted, and I happen to think every day spent in London is a mistake, and I was roused to the sense of our different views by his saying, “Well, but I want you to gain another day in London, and you can write to Louisa that you were not well yesterday, and then stay here, and I will go to the play with you to-night.” Such an iniquitous plot! And I am about as fit to go to the play as to go in a balloon.

George liked Middleton very much. Lady Jersey137 was going, as soon as the present party was all gone, to turn unhappy for the poor Duke of York,138 and as far as I can make out, she was going to show it by putting off all the ladies of the party she was to have had this week, and to keep up just enough to receive all the gentlemen. She and Lady Granville139 seem to have had a fine tracasserie at Paris. George is so charmed with Lady Jersey’s children. He says he never saw such a fine pleasant set of boys, and the girls are very pretty.

I have not been out of the house, except once, to see Elizabeth Cawdor,140 and with that wonderful quickness of observation that I possess I discovered that she will probably soon add to her family, and that the addition will be very considerable – three or four at least.

Lady Bath is at Rome again and not the least anxious to come home, which is odd. One of Elizabeth’s children is so pretty. I have no news to tell you, as it does not come of itself. One must go to look for it.

[In October 1820 Emily Eden suddenly received from her friend Pamela in Scotland the news of her engagement to a widower with one child – Sir Guy Campbell, and a month later the wedding had taken place. Pamela, in her characteristic way, wrote and announced the event.]

Before you read thro’ this letter call your maid, and get the smelling bottle, for you will certainly faint away with surprise and wonder. Who would have thought it! I don’t believe it myself so I cannot expect you to believe it, but I am going to be married perfectly true in about a month or six weeks.

I am going to be married to Sir Guy Campbell141… What I would have given to have had you with me all this time, and at this moment, I miss you beyond expression. He is uncommonly right-headed, of course it follows he is liberal, wide-minded and indulgent, at the same time I see he can take violent dislikes, as you do at times, my best one. He is very tact to a degree, and that you know, Dearest, is a corner-stone in happiness, for there is no fitting two minds without it.

[On her wedding-day, November 20, Pamela wrote to say the Catholic priest had married them at half-past twelve, and that she was to be married again by the Presbyterian minister, and a long dinner was to be given for them in the evening for all the Family to contemplate her. A week later she wrote again to Miss Eden.]

Just like you, and quite tactful not to cool our affection for each other by sending me a wet blanket in the shape of a congratulation. I like Sir Guy more and more, he understands me so well, he knows my faults, which is a great relief, for I have no silent obliquity to smother, or no good behaviour to act up to more than is comfortable. He is doing a set of sketches of the Highlands for you, which I am sure you will like. However, tho’ he is of a Highland family, let me take from your mind any impression that he is at all Scotch in obstinacy, cunning cheek-bones, or twang. He has not been in Scotland for the last six and twenty years. You need not tell dear Mrs. Colvile this, who has built all my hopes of future happiness on his being Scotch to the bone. Hers was the first letter I received with Lady Campbell on it…

I cannot say how pretty it was of you to send that pretty cap, which I think the prettiest cap that ever was prettied. Pat your Grantham for she did that commission well. So she was very brimful of London and the ways and means of the place? You wonder at her liking it so much after having had so much of it; but it grows upon them like a description I read somewhere of some part of the Infernal Regions, where the damned were condemned to misery and dirt, wallowing in mire and sand, but they were so degraded they had lost the sense of misery, and had no wish to leave the darkness for light.