Miss Eden's Letters

It would be existence to me. Oh Emmy, I have so much to unburthen and talk over with you – and you only. I am much pleased with what I have seen of Mama, and Guy likes her…

Conceive the fuss we have had! My Lansdowne recommended Bridget as my maid; Bridget turned out a thief and has robbed me to the amount of 70 Pounds, and acknowledged the fact before the Police, which is no consolation, her candour not replacing the articles. We declined the other consolation of pursuing her, whipping and branding, and five years detention; but only – mind you! – never trust Jane Kingston, Lady Bath’s laundress, for Bridget declares upon oath having sent the things to her – my best lace among the rest.

On searching her things, a fine brodée handkerchief appeared, with Harriet embroidered in the corner, and as she lived with Lady H. Drummond168 perhaps the House of Drummond might wish to make reclamation… Your own

PAMELA.Lady Campbell to Miss Eden[17 CADOGAN TERRACE,]September 16, 1822.

MY OWN EMILY, Here have I been settling myself to my infinite satisfaction, after having endured the ordeal of France which I went through. Where are you? What are you doing? Remember I have bespoke you, October I expect to lay my egg.169 If you are within reach – oh, it will be such a comfort to me, I positively thirst to have a talk with you. I am so happy to be in England. Better to live on a crust or a crumb, which is not half so good in England, than upon penny rolls in France.

I understand Lord Worcester170 is already so bored with his bargain that he is to be pitied according to the good-nature of the world for anything that is passing wrong. It is sad that for the morality of the world, people will not be convinced that illegality and sin are not free from bore and ennui…

Tell me you are at hand or coming, for I downright long to see you, and in my position you should not let me long, though it would be no great punishment to have a child like you. Sir Guy sends his particular love to you. Your own affectionate

OLD PAM.November 22, 1822.

Emily, these trembling lines, guided by a hand weakened by confinement, must speak daggers and penknives to you, for never having taken any written notice of me since you chucked me my child in at the window and went your way. As you come on Monday, I refer all to our meeting.

I want you shockingly… Come to me soon, dear. Your affectionate

PAMELA.Lord Auckland to his sister, Miss EdenNORMAN COURT, October 29 [1822].

Thank you for your two letters which I would have answered sooner, but we shoot all day and are lazy all the evening.

I am not sure that you knew that Wall171 had been ill and near losing the sight from one of his eyes. He is considerably better, and shoots as usual, and has no doubt of perfectly recovering.

My trip to Fonthill172 was an amusing way of passing a spare day, and has left a strong impression of the immeasurable folly with which money may be spent. The house is too absurd, but the grounds are beautiful. Lansdowne has bought some pictures there which he was anxious for, as they belonged to his father. I have just heard from him. He is going for a few weeks to Paris, and like everybody else, is expecting you and me to pay him a good long visit at the end of the year. In his mild rational way he exceedingly regrets that the Cortes have not cut off the head of Ferdinand.173

Lady Campbell to Miss Eden[1822.]

MY DARLING EM, Your letter has revived me, for I was smothered with Fog and so obfuscated I found myself growing callous of the density of the gloom, and my perception of my own dirt and my neighbour’s grimness was diminishing. I was getting hardened, when your letter and a gleam of dingy yellow sun showed me the state of myself and the children, and I went up and washed myself and repented of my filth. The fog prevented Mrs. Colvile coming, which is provoking. I wanted to show her my boy; she has put so many of them together, she has an experienced eye on the subject174…

The Ladies Fitz-Patrick, old Mrs. Smith, etc., are cooking up a match between Vernon Smith and Mary Wilson, old Lord Ossory’s natural daughter with much money.

Emily does it strike you that vices are wonderfully prolific among the Whigs? There are such countless illegitimates among them, such a tribe of Children of the Mist… Your own

PAM.Lady Campbell to Miss EdenJanuary 6, 1823.

Twelfth Night or what you will.

MY DARLING EMMY, Thank God you have written at last, I have worked myself into a fright this day or two that you were very ill. I have been very poorly, but am better. You are mistaken about that sucking lump being a favourite. I esteem him; he is a man of strict probity and integrity with steady principles, and he is a man would make any reasonable woman very happy in domestic life; but there is a refinement and charm in that Cain that makes a fool of me, – a great fool, for she175 don’t much care for me, and is radically vicious.

We have got a house between Reading and Basingstoke, a mile from Strathfieldsaye, at a village called Strathfield Turgess: – delightful prospect, well furnished, roomy, with Cow and poultry included, garden meadow, for £84 per annum.

Lady Louisa Lennox had rather taken my fancy, and that negative mind of being Anti-Bathurst is a jewel in their favour. Emily, to have it gravely told me Lady Georgina Bathurst176 is a strong-headed woman, superior, with wonderful abilities, etc. Cela m’irrite la bile, when I know her to be prejudiced, worldly, entrenched by prejudices upon prejudice, till her very soul is straightened within the narrow limit of the Ministers, their wives, and her own family…

How is your Grantham? My Lansdowne is playing at de petits jeux innocents. I am of a guilty inclination and cannot taste those social innocences, besides, Emmy, we don’t do such things well in England, it don’t suit well, and to fail in a triviality is failure indeed, but the Wilt loves a caper. All this is very well, but I want to talk to you, Emmy. I have such quantities I cannot even tap in a letter, that I could talk out just in one ½ hour.

Louisa Napier177 is with Lady Londonderry,178 and the account I think very horrid. Every thing at Cray goes on the same, conversation, laughing, novels, light books, the attaches and habitués coming in, the very red boxes of office left in their places, not a shade of difference in her occupations, amusements or mode of life.

She seems as if determined there shall be no change. This may be fortitude, to me it is frightful. That habits should be so cherished and so rooted as to withstand such a shock as the disappearance of the only object she is ever supposed to have loved by Death, and such a death, is wonderful, and not to be understood if it is upon principles so erroneous…

I dined with the Wellesleys yesterday. Mr. Wellesley179 acknowledges having been distractedly in love with Sister, and was so pleased to see her at Hastings. He hopes you like the place. His son Arthur is such a cub, and thinks himself so very every thing, it made me quite low. Of the Wellesley girls, the top and bottom dish, or eldest and youngest, are of the specie Geese – the middle ones, Georgina180 and Mary,181 are quite delightful, and very uncommon in their way.

Lady Campbell to Miss Eden[STRATHFIELD TURGESS,]April 11, 1824.

Thank you for your last letter, thank you for Lord Lansdowne’s after laugh, but thank you above all, for being still my own Emmy just the same as ever. I suppose you are going to Captain Parry’s182 fête on board the Hecla, announced in the newspaper. I think he might have asked me, and then I could have got over his ordering all this snow from Gunter’s. However I think he has rather overdone it. I understand there is to be a whole course of Walrus.

I had a letter from Sister, written at Lady Sarah’s183 the day she left Strathfieldsaye. She is full of good, and agreeable; but yet, I never should be able to be quite friends with her. There is some gall about her which would always give me an afterthought, and keep me perhaps more on my guard with her than with many others who might betray me faster.

I wish you could have seen us all, we were so ill-sorted. As for poor Sister, among three Eton boys, one Oxford merveilleux, 2 silent girls, 1 military clergyman, 2 Colonels, some dancing country neighbours all wound up and going, I don’t know how she survives. By the bye tell me what are a Mr. Adderley and a Miss Adderley184 to her? Something? Lord Buckinghamshire’s legitimates by a former marriage, or Sister’s illegitimates, or both their children, or no children at all? I was asked and could not tell. Don’t racket yourself to death. I, who no longer sit at good men’s feasts, certainly may magnify the fatigue, but I am sure you do too much.

May, 1824. – There is some saying, Chinese I believe, about not letting grass grow between friends, or words to that effect. Now, you must allow I have mowed it twice, but you will not keep it down, and if you will not, what’s to be done?

Lucy is coming to me to-morrow in spite of her resolutions never to be with me during a groaning. Mrs. Napier, too, who is staying at Farm House with her husband and a few children, wishes much to be with me, and it will, I know, end in my running away into some Barn, like a Cat, to kitten in peace. No, my dear Emmy, you are the only person that can be agreeable to me even in a lying-in —c’est tout dire.

Lucy tells me she saw dear Robert,185 greatly to her satisfaction, one stray day she spent in London. So odd! for in general those are the particular days one can look out no face one ever saw before, unless one happens to be ill-dressed or in any disgraceful predicament of Hackney coach or bad company… But strange to say, Lucy met Robert with decency and without distress. She says he is just the same, only sunburnt. How I wish I could see him, if he has any houses of low price and good dimensions, and furnished suited to a genteel but indigent or indignant Family? There is a talk of our leaving this, as the Landlord wishes to live here himself, and I should like to belong to Robert’s flock, of being one of his Ouailles.

Lady Campbell to Miss EdenTURGESS,May 14, 1824.

DEAREST EMMY, I was quite sorry I had sent my letter when the day after I found I was at liberty to talk about William de Roos’s marriage.186 I am all delighted, and all that, and all I should be when I see him so happy. But tho’ I have been going thro’ all the palliating influence of confidant and in his secret, and within the mark of all hopes, and fears, and difficulties, yet I cannot shake off the idea that she is not good enough, he is selon moi such a dear creature, so much beyond the common run of man, of young men. Of course I rely on your keeping this alongside with your own ideas on the subject.

I believe she is improved, and I liked her once, when first she came out, and you know we certainly sober in this world unless we go mad; perhaps she may have taken that turn. In short there is much in her favour, but while he was marrying a beggar he might have had a pleasanter, but opportunity does all those things, there is no choice in the case. One negative advantage I have never lost sight of, she is not a Bathurst.

I do regret bitterly not seeing Robert. If I was not childing, I could have had a room for him, but somehow I shall be lying-in in every room and all over the place. Give my love to him and ask him seriously, if he knows of a family house that could suit us, as Sir Guy and I are very likely to find all the world before us next February, like Adam and Eve, only with better clothes and more children.

Is not it so like William de Roos to go to Ireland to avoid the wishing joy? He had business certainly, but still nobody but him could do such a thing. Many thanks for solving Sister’s acidities for me. Your own

PAMELA.Lady Campbell to Miss Eden[STRATHFIELD TURGESS,]Sunday, June 20, 1824.

DEAR EMMY, Yes, yes, you may still show pleasure, surprise, emotion, on seeing my handwriting again. Here, alas, my reign is over, my rôle of lying-in… One month, one little month, was scarce allowed me; and I was again dragged into the vulgar tumult of common barren life. Provoking and vexatious events are no longer kept from my knowledge, the hush and tiptoe are forgotten, the terror of my agitation has ceased, the glory of Israel is departed! The truth is I am too well; there is no pathos, no dignity, no interest, in rude health, and consequently I meet with no respect. I have not even been allowed to read Redgauntlet in seclusion, and chickens and tit-bits have given way to mutton chops and the coarse nutrition adapted to an unimpaired constitution.

Emily! let me be a warning if you wish to preserve the regard of your friends, the respect of your acquaintance, consideration, attention, in short, all social benefits, don’t get well – never know an hour’s health.

I have got into a fit of nonsense, as you will perceive, a sort of letter-giggle; seriously now I want to hear from you, to know how you are… Sir Guy is gone to Town to see his sister off to France. He is to sleep to-night in Water Lane, which sounds damp, but is convenient to the Steamboat by which Fanny Campbell sails or boils to Calais… Your own

PAMELA.Lady Campbell to Miss EdenSTRATHFIELD TURGESS,June 1824.

I wish I knew how you are, and where you are. William de Roos is the happiest of men, and Lady G. has won Uncle Henry’s187 heart at Strangford by taking to gardening; I do hope it may turn out well and shame the Devil…

As I stood looking over a heap of weeds that were burning, they struck my own mind, as being somewhat like itself, you could see no flame, you could see no fire, and yet it was surely tho’ slowly consuming to ashes. Now you see my indolence does just the same to my better qualities. There is no outraged sin, no crying vice, and yet this indolence eats into my life.

If you will but keep me in order, and pity my infirmities, when can you come to me?..

The great House is a bore, selon moi, but I will tell you all about it when you come. I have just read Hayley;188 considering I don’t think him a Poet, nor his life eventful, I wonder why one reads it? The truth is, we are all, I believe, so fond of knowing other people’s business, we would read anybody’s life.

July 9, 1824.

Many thanks for your letter. It did indeed make my country eyes stare, and put me in such a bustle as if I had all you did – to do. I have had a great combat, but pride shall give way, and candour shall cement our friendship. The paragraph in your letter about Lord E. threw me into consternation, as well as those who might have known better, for, Emily, he has not written me a word about it, and would you believe it? I don’t know who he is going to marry… You rolled your pen in such a fine frenzy that I cannot read your version of his name no more than if it had been written with one of the lost legs of the spider tribe. I see it begins with a B., but the rest dissolves like the bad half of those prayers to Jupiter in Air.

I believe I should make your city hair friz again, if I were to detail my country week’s work. However, I will be cautious. I won’t speak too much of myself, which for want of extraneous matters, I might be led to do… You keep very bad company with them Player-men, those Horticultural Cultivators of the Devil’s hot-bed.

I suppose I shall hear you talk of the Sock and Buskin; it is all that Cassiobury connexion that makes you so lax.

Miss Eden to her Niece, Eleanor ColvileSPROTBOROUGH [DONCASTER], Sunday [1824].

MY DEAR ELEANOR, Your Mamma seems to think you may like to have a letter, and I am vainly trying to persuade myself I like to write one.

The Miss Copleys have their Sunday School just the same as ours, with the Butcher’s daughter and the Shop-woman for teachers; not quite so many children as we have; but in all other respects the two schools are as like as may be, and they are there all Sunday, which gives me time for writing.

Maria [Copley]189 has just been telling a story of a Christening that makes me laugh. She and her sister stood Godmothers to two little twins in the village, and carried them to church. The children were only a fortnight old, and therefore were much wrapped up, and Miss Copley, who is not used to handling children, carried hers with the feet considerably higher than the head. She gave it carefully to the clergyman when he was to christen it, and together they undid its cloak in search of its face, and found two little red feet. They were so surprised at this that the clergyman looked up in her face and said: “Why, then, where is its head?” And she, being just as much frightened, answered: “I really cannot think.” Maria at last suggested that in all probability the head would be at the opposite end of the bundle from the feet, and so it proved.

Good-bye, dear Eleanor,190 mind you get better. It is foolish to be ill; I found it so myself. Love to all. Your affectionate Aunt,

E. E.Miss Eden to Miss Villiers[EYAM RECTORY], STONEY MIDDLETON,August 1824.

MY DEAR MISS VILLIERS, George has gone to Scotland to kill the poor dumb grouse (or grice), as they ought to be in the plural, but I will transmit your direction to him, and if he can do what you wish I daresay he will, though I have an idea it is the sort of thing about which people chuse to look really important, and say they cannot interfere.

…Dear Lady Chichester!191 How lucky it is that people’s letters are so like themselves. It is perhaps not unnatural but amusing too, I did not know till Lady Buckinghamshire mentioned it the other day when she was talking of this marriage that the Chichesters have the strongest possible feeling on the subject of connexion, and she said they would look on this marriage as a positive calamity. How very absurd it is, and it is a shame of Lady Chichester to exaggerate George Osborne’s192 faults so much. He was not in fact very much to blame, in his disagreement with Lord Francis, and if it were not the way of the Osborne family to make their family politics the subject of their jokes to all the world, George would have been reckoned just as good as any boy of his age. I imagine that even Lord Chichester has found his son liked his own way as well as the rest of the world, but perhaps Lady Chichester and he do not impart to each other the little difficulties they find with those separate little families you mention…

We are so settled here that it seems as if we had never gone away, I believe one changes one’s self as well as Horses at Barnet, I lose all my recollections of London, “that great city where the geese are all swans and the fools are all witty” and take up the character of the Minister’s sister, as I hear myself called in the village. Robert’s house is very comfortable, and I think this much the most beautiful country I have seen since I saw the Pyrenees. Some people might think it verging on the extreme of picturesque and call it wild, but I love a mountainous country. I go sketching about with the slightest success, the rocks are too large and obstinate and won’t be drawn.

Mrs. Lamb193 came here Sunday, and we must return the visit some day, but by a great mercy I broke the spring of the pony carriage the other day. Your ever affectionate

E. E.

CHAPTER IV

1825-1827

Miss Eden to Miss VilliersEyam, Saturday [1825].

MY DEAR MISS VILLIERS, What a shame it is that I should have been so long writing to you, particularly after Mrs. Villiers had made the discovery that my letters amused her. My sister Louisa [Colvile] and four of her children passed a fortnight here at the end of last month, and our whole time was spent in “exploring in the barouche landau,” as Mrs. Elton observes.

By the time I have had nine or ten more of my sisters here, and thirty or forty of their children, I shall be tired of my own enthusiasm in the great picturesque cause; but at present all other employments are sacrificed to it. However, it may amuse you.

I shall continue to think a visit to Chatsworth a very great trouble. You are probably right in thinking the Duke194 takes pleasure in making people do what they don’t like, and that accounts for his asking me so often. We have now made a rule to accept one invitation out of two. We go there with the best dispositions, wishing to be amused, liking the people we meet there, loyal and well affected to the King of the Peak himself, supported by the knowledge that in the eyes of the neighbourhood we are covering ourselves with glory by frequenting the great house; but with all these helps we have never been able to stay above two days there without finding change of air absolutely necessary, – never could turn the corner of the third day, – at the end of the second the great depths of bore were broken up and carried all before them: we were obliged to pretend that some christening, or a grand funeral, or some pressing case of wedding (in this country it is sometimes expedient to hurry the performance of the marriage ceremony) required Robert’s immediate return home, and so we departed yawning. It is odd it should be so dull. The G. Lambs are both pleasant, and so is Mr. Foster and Mrs. Cavendish and a great many of the habitués of Chatsworth; and though I have not yet attained the real Derbyshire feeling which would bring tears of admiration into my eyes whenever the Duke observed that it was a fine day, yet I think him pleasant, and like him very much, and can make him hear without any difficulty, and he is very hospitable and wishes us to bring all our friends and relations there, if that would do us any good. But we happen to be pleasanter at home. However private vices may contribute to public benefit, I do not see how private bore can contribute to public happiness, do you?

Pray give my love to your mother, and believe me, your affectionate

E. E.Miss Eden to her Sister, Lady BuckinghamshireLANGLEY,July 15, 1825.

MY DEAREST SISTER, Do you recollect my asking you whether you would give us a dinner in the course of the year? Well, at one of our pleasant dinners the other day we were all so mortal agreeable that we settled we should go to Astley’s on the 18th. The party consisted of Maria Copley, Lord Henry Thynne,195 Colonel Arden,196 Mr. Wall,197 Henry Eden,198 and our three selves. To that it was necessary to add for decency’s sake Sir Joseph and Coppy.199 It occurred to me this afternoon whilst murmuring over the heat, which is extremely unpleasant, that Astley’s would be the death of us all, and that if the weather continued in its present state, it would be better to change it for a water party.

It would be very pleasant if your carriage and two or three of those nice little poney-carriages you keep on the heather were to meet us at the water-side to bring us to your nice little place, and you receive us in your nice little way, and give us a nice little collation at about 6 o’clock, and let us walk about the place and then leave you, and talk you well over in the boat, as we go back again.

In the first place, these are all the people whom you have read about over and over again, and whom you are dying to see. Then, though they are ten now, yet by the end of the week they will not be above seven or eight.

Sir Joseph hates the water, so as I mean to make a vacancy for the present list I will ask your own Mr. G. Villiers to come with us, and he will be such a support to you. Well, what do you think?

My own interest in the question is this: that I am going to establish a coolness between myself and Lord Henry, who is exposing me to the remarks of the invidious public without any earthly purpose; and I had all the advantage at Burlington House on Thursday of being supposed to be honoured by a proposal from him in the face of many curious spectators, when he was imparting to me his intentions of admiring another person more than me. I do not know whether it was fun or spite, or a tryal of my feelings, or whether he is serious; but as I found that I did not care which it was, I do not mean to favour the world with the sight of any more such long conversations. It amuses them more than it does me, and henceforth I mean not to let him go tagging after me as he has done lately. The Astley party was made before this wise resolution, and I want to change it to a water-party, which will cut him out without offending him, as he never goes on fresh water, and we will ask Mr. Villiers in his place.