Miss Eden's Letters

She sometimes smiles when Mr. Robinson and I have been talking nonsense, but does not say anything. Your most affectionate

E. E.Miss Eden to Miss VilliersNOCTON,December 15, 1826.

MY DEAR THERESA, I wish to apprise you not to go in search of me in Grosvenor Street, because I am not there. “I am very bad with the ague,” as people must be in the habit of saying in these fenny districts. I ’ticed my poor dear George out of town into this horrid place, and here he is with nobody to play with and nothing to do, and missing his Woburn shooting… Still the idea of another’s bore is a heavy weight on my mind.

You will be happy to hear that Mr. Robinson is very well. George says he never saw him better, and he makes a point of telling him so three times a day at least. The poor man is starving, as Sarah will not allow him to dine except in her dressing-room at two o’clock, because, as she does not dine down with the family, she says she cannot trust to his promises not to eat more than is right, as she is not there. He happens to have an immensely good appetite since his headache, and frets like a child about this; but has not courage to dine like a man on the most unwholesome things he can find. I would live on mushrooms and walnuts and fried plum-pudding if I were him.

This conversation passed verbatim yesterday, but do not for your life mention it again. He wanted to go to the stables when he was out walking, but said Sarah had told him not. However, he went boldly to her window and knocked at it. “Sarah, I wish I might go to the stables?” – “No, dearest, I told you before not to go.” – “Yes; but I want to see my horses. Mayn’t I go?” – “No, darling, you said you would not ask it if I let you go out.” – “Yes; but one of my horses is sick, and I want to see it.” – “Well, then, if Mama will go with you, you may.” So Sister actually had to go with him to take care of him. She told me this, and did not know whether he was ashamed of it; but I saw him in the evening and he repeated it, evidently rather pleased that he was made so much of. He is a poor creature after all, Theresa, though you are so fond of him. Your most affectionate

E.E.

Anne and Mary went on Wednesday. I did not see them the last two days, but Mr. Auckland still does not admire them. I wish Anne would be as pleasant in society as she is alone with one. I think she is nervous.

Miss Eden to Miss VilliersNOCTON,December 1826.

DEAREST THERESA, There is a shameful substitution of the donkey for the poney who ought to take these letters to post, so allowing for the difference of speed, the letters go an hour and a half sooner than usual! and Mr. Robinson has just sent up the frank for you, he says the letter must go in ten minutes, so it is no use my trying to make a letter. I have mentioned your and Mrs. Villiers’s enquiries constantly to Sarah, and read her aloud bits of your letter yesterday. I think she likes enquiries.

It is more than I do; I pass my life answering them still, because people whom I never saw or wish to see, know dear Miss Eden will excuse them if they trouble her again, etc. I don’t excuse them at all, but I am obliged to answer their letters just as if I did.

It is difficult to know what to say… When first we came down I thought her really low for two days, though it struck me as odd that she was so little attentive to him. However, I believe she thought him too cheerful, though God knows it was the falsest cheerfulness ever was acted.

Since Saturday she has been exactly in the state in which she was before poor Elinor’s death. She talks and thinks of nothing but her health, and I really believe (and I do not think it is want of charity that makes me so, for I pity her still) that a thought of her child does not cross her mind twice in the day.

She is absorbed in herself, and has been more animated since she has been – or called herself – ill, for she talks of her complaint without ceasing and without reserve. It will be said more than ever she is in the family way, for they have sent an express for Clarke, and we are expecting him to-night, and nobody knows what to say to him when he comes.

I think she is a little ashamed about Clarke, and I grudge the hundred guineas, which would be better bestowed on weavers, or the people in the village here.

Sister tried to be candid about it last night, and said that Clarke would probably stay a day or two when he came, and he would amuse Sarah; I suggested that for half the money I could have persuaded several pleasant men to come from London to stay double the time, so it must not be defended on the plea of economy.. She could not help laughing, because in fact she is less taken in than anybody. The cold of this place surpasses anything I have ever felt. Yours

E.E.

CHAPTER V

1827-1828

Lady Campbell to Miss EdenCORK,May 21, 1827.

SAILED at two, Saturday; landed at passage within the Cove of Cork last night at six. All sick, but the children so good and patient. I was quite proud of my brood, even the Baby241 showed an esprit de conduite that edified me. Six boats came out and fought for our bodies under the ship till I thought we should be torn to pieces in the skrimmage. They, however, landed us whole, when another battle was livrée for us among the jingle-boys who were to whisk us to Cork. We were stowed in three of these said carrioles called jingles, driven by half-naked barefoot boys who began whirrrring, harrrrowing, cutting jokes, talking Irish, and galloping in these skeleton carts till the children caught the infection, laughed and roared and kicked with delight. A violent shower came on. Who cares? thinks I, they must have Irish blood in their veins, for this is very like English misery, but they naturally think it Fun. We arrived in tearing spirits, very wet, and were cheated of a considerable sum in shillings. We are in an excellent Hotel and set off early for Limerick. Nobody dare travel late in this poor country. Oh, Emily, it is melancholy to see the misery and cunning and degradation of these poor people. I could cry, and I sit looking about, having heard so much of them all, that it appears to me I am recollecting all I see!.. Such beggars! they show me such legs! and one was driven up in a barrow, legless!

LIMERICK,May 29, 1827.

Here I am settled dans mes foyers in a roomy, comfortable, homely mansion, with dark black mahogany unwieldy furniture and needlework chairs ranged round the room in regiments, and a glowing embery turf fire.

We have a field before the house with a walk round it; we look upon the broad Shannon and the Clare Mountains… We have a complete leper, a Lazarus, outside our door, which gives me a sort of Dives feel, very unpleasant to my conscience, and sumptuous fare every day, and purple and fine linen, keep running in my head, that this very day I mean to go and make a treaty of peace between this lame beggar and my conscience that I may rest. I have also a stiff straight-cut schoolmaster who opens the gate. He is of the established Church, teaches boys, makes shoes, and was a soldier.

We have fine Artillery Barracks; we have a Lunatick Asylum not so large as the Gaol, and serves three counties; which shows the country abounds more in Knaves than Fools. But oh, the misery, the desolate look of the whole country, the beggary – I shall never get used to it. And the whole country looking as if it was capable of being the richest in the world. This large river flowing on without a boat upon it, crowds of people talking and sauntering about in rags, complaining of having no work… The whole country looks sacked. However it is reckoned very quiet just now.

This part is reckoned very rich and prosperous. Our living is excellent, meat, milk, eggs, and poultry, and fish so cheap, I feel as if it was quite a pity I cannot eat more at once.

July 6, 1827.

…We are getting a little outrageous in this county, and very much so in T’p’rary, for we lack potatoes there, and hunger sharpens the wits, so we just lift the flour and potatoes cast for our use. Is it possible that Lord Anglesey is to be our Lord-Lieutenant? Am I really to pray for him, and for the sword the King puts in his hand, every Sunday in church? Oh dear, dear! What a wretched country this is – it wearies the spirit to see it.

Miss Eden to Miss VilliersBIGODS, ESSEX,Sunday, July 1827.

I have been longing for a letter from you.

I have not seen an individual out of this house since I entered it three weeks ago, except one day when we dined at Lord Maynard’s, – the most melancholy ceremony, barring a funeral, I ever assisted at. Conversation is one of the social duties not practised in Essex. Mary and I talked our level best, and they must all have thought us either the most delightful people in the world, or the most impudent.

The very names of the neighbours are as monosyllabic (a very puzzling word to spell) as their conversation. Mr. Brown and Mr. Wish and Mr. Rush and so on, so contrived, I am certain, to avoid prolixity. The work of education goes on from morning to night. Six small Intellects constantly on the march, and Mary, of course, is hatching a seventh child. I own I am glad I am not married, it is such a tiresome fatiguing life; and though as a visitor I delight in the children, yet I would not be so worn and worried as their mother is on any consideration. I think she fidgets too much about them, but a large family is a great standing fidget of itself, and I suppose one would be the same under the same circumstances.

I like this undisturbed sort of life, only the days go so fast when they are all alike. There is a good, hard, reading library in the house, and I am quite glad to find that when I cannot have novels I can read other books just as well.

George seems to have found London very amusing to the last. He wrote to me the other day after he had been supping at Lord Alvanley’s, who was in great delight at some Paris pantaloons he had heard of, —Peau de Pendu; and if the Pendu was the right size the Pantaloons fitted without a wrinkle and without a seam of course. George is by way now of being settled at Eastcombe. He has had a great many parties down there to dinner, some that must have been hard trials to Sister, – Sir J. Copley amongst others.

The B. Barings were to dine there Friday. I do not think Lady Harriet242 will suit Sister. Do not let it go any further, I tell it you in the greatest confidence, – but in fact you are beginning to find out that the Barings are rather failures – I mean as to agreeableness. It will be some time before Mr. Baring fails in the moneyed sense of the word; but I see you, in fact, think, of the Grange just as I do: – charming place and family, but a dull visit, and to my last hour I shall go on saying, as you do, and as I always have said, that Harriet is a very superior person. But nobody will ever guess how dull I think her. I like Baring père243 the best…

I am glad you are more just to little Mr. Wall. I tried to be so unjust to him myself that I do not like to find anybody else so. After all, he makes one laugh, which is a merit, and he is a warm friend, and if he is a little ridiculous, it is no business of ours. Heaven help Mrs. Wall – if there ever should be such a person. But there never will…

I hope we shall go to Ireland; but it seems to be in a troublesome state and I should hate to be piked. If we do go, I shall be so pleased to see your George again. You need never be the least jealous about Lady F.244 I like her character very much, and her society very well; but I never should think of having for her the real warm affection I have for you, or expect the return from her I expect from you. It is quite a different thing, – what is called great esteem, I suppose. She does not care a straw for me. Our Irish journey is fixed for the 29th, next Monday week, the day we fixed when you were in Grosvenor Street, but Mary ain’t brought to bed a bit more than she was then, and I have some doubts whether I shall be able to go as soon as that. The doctor here thinks my lungs are in fault, but there never was a Doctor who saw me for the first time that did not think the same, and afterwards found out his mistake, and I always confute them by recovering so quickly.

I cannot say half I had to say: all my moralities about poor Mr. Canning,245 and then I have had such an amusing letter from Pam, and Sarah is worse than ever. Your most affectionate

E. E.Miss Eden to Miss VilliersBIGODS, ESSEX.

This is to be a simple line, because I am in what Mary Palk246 used to call a religious bustle, occasioned by the difficulty of being in time for church if I write my letters. And the post-time and church-time clash cruelly, and I have made this such a week of rest as to writing that I am horribly in debt. I cannot help thinking George’s cold contempt for anybody who leaves London at all, which broke out into words the day before I left town, relieved his indignant heart, and I think he will perhaps let me stay. I cannot understand your not liking the country; it is an inconsistency in your character, and if I did not spurn an argument, I might almost deign to point out to you unanswerable reasons for hating London – as a place I mean, not as a means of seeing one’s friends. Its effect on one’s liver you will not dispute.

We sit out of doors all day. I should not like to paint myself, but I have done some sketches of the children in that chalk style, that certainly betray unequivocal marks of genius; inasmuch as their nurse, who was mine in former days, declares she had no idea Miss Emily could take them off so well, and she would not mind having them pictures for herself – which is wonderful for her to own.

Mary [Drummond] is very well, all things considered. I wish you could hear her play; I always think it the prettiest music in the world. She plays a great deal now. I heard from Pam to-day; very well, and resigned to Limerick. I wish you could manage through your Mr. Jones, or any better way, that she might have her mother’s247 letters from Paris without paying 2/10 for them, which she says is the whole of her income. Can you manage it?

Miss Eden to Miss VilliersBIGODS,July 12, 1827.

Well, I had nearly seized my pen yesterday, and leaving all decorum and propriety, throwing aside all the prudent and guarded forms and usages of society, was on the point of writing to your brother, merely from complete distrust of his being up to the tricks of the Goderichs. I was going as his friend-in-law, the friend of his sister, to implore him for once not to be a simple gentleman-like fool, not an honourable-minded generous idiot – in short, to stand up for his rights, and not to take the offer of 7/6 or 7/4 which Lord Goderich would in all probability make to him for the use of the house for a week and a compensation of the loss of the rent for the ensuing three months. He might not have offered so much; but I merely state the case in the grand Liberal manner.

Some obscure passages in Sister’s letter yesterday, and a very accurate observation for many years of the manners and customs of the Goderich tribe, led me to imagine they were trying to throw the house back on your hands; and I wish to exhort you all not to catch it if they throw it at you ten times a day. Charles Drummond desired me to add that as far as £10 would go to assist in any prosecution against Sarah for breach of contract, he should be most happy to subscribe it. However, I waited for your letter, and am happy to see that for once I was mistaken about the Goderichs as you do not mention that any shabby offer was ever made. Accepted, of course, it could not be. You know the usual answer is, that everything is in the hands of the agent, and you have nothing to do with it, and that Mrs. Villiers would of course say. I still mistrust them, and cannot quite understand some of Sister’s expressions. Her story otherwise tallies wonderfully with yours, except, that though you were in the next house, you cannot know how very much Sarah contrived to outdo her usual self in this instance. Sister is fully aware how tiresome she herself was. I should like to send you her letter, only it is so long; for it is very amusing, though it is a shame to let anybody see the abject slavery in which she and Mr. Robinson live.

It is quite a Fowell Buxton248 case. They are always so kind as to call Sarah’s horrid bad temper – excitement; and Sister says that none of them have ever seen Sarah in such a state of excitement (such an overwhelming rage, evidently) as she was in this time. She would not hear of the slightest contradiction, and Sister said she had been obliged to write every half-hour to poor Mrs. Villiers without being able to make Sarah even listen to her representations. She was quieted at last by a quantity of Laudanum, besides her own way to satisfy her. The last would be a pleasant sedative to most of us.

Miss Eden to Lady CampbellBIGODS, ESSEX,July 1827.

DEAREST PAM, This may be excellent weather for the hay and corn, but it is not good for writing, does not bring out letters in any good quantity. I cannot write when I am hot, and besides, I have been taking a good week of repose down here with Mary, and have carefully abstained from any exertion greater than sitting in the shade, with a book (turned topsy-turvy for fear I should read it) in my hand. I had so much to say to you, too, about that breakfast at Boyle Farm249 and your brother – rather old news now; but as your old butter seems very fresh by the time you have sent it over to us, it may be the same with our news sent to you.

In the first place, your brother has made himself extremely popular with all Lord Ellenborough’s250 enemies, which comprise the whole of what is usually called London society. Lord Ellenborough went to Astley’s about ten days ago, and his own box was overstocked; so he went to another belonging to Mr. Anson, Lord Forbes and a party of gentlemen, your brother amongst others, but Mr. FitzGerald did not come in till after Lord E. had settled himself there. When he did come, Lord Ellenborough chose to consider him as the intruder into his own box, and threw him several of those looks which he considers irresistible, whether in contempt or supplication. Probably also he shook those horrid grey locks at Mr. FitzGerald. However, early next morning he received a note from Mr. FitzGerald that he had observed the insolence of his looks and could not submit to it, and Lord Ellenborough must either meet him, or make him the most ample apology, not only in words to Lord Forbes, but by letter to himself. So Lord Ellenborough did make the most ample apology in words to Lord Forbes, and then wrote a letter of five pages to Mr. FitzGerald, four of them apologetical and the fifth, they say, a very high eulogium of your brother’s character, courage, morals, and all. Mr. FitzGerald observed that was all very well, but he “should keep an eye on Lord E. to the end of the season!” They say it was delightful to see Lord E. walking about at Boyle Farm looking so bland and benevolent, and so well-mannered. That is the way the story is told, and, I really believe, as little exaggerated as may be, and you have no idea of the delight it excited. Lord E. has the advantage of being entirely friendless, and the insolence of his look is just the very thing that wanted correction.

I suppose you heard the general outline of the Boyle Farm breakfast, if not, I could send you our card. Lord Alvanley, Lord Chesterfield, Lord Castlereagh, Mr. Grosvenor, and the Sarpent251 were the five givers; but in fact they each subscribed £300, and the Sarpent had the management of the whole. Mr. Grosvenor asked humbly to be allowed to ask two friends, which was refused, tho’ he said it was really an object to him; and upon investigation it turned out that the two friends were his father and mother. The conversations about the invitation must have been like those between the Triumvirate, – Lepidus Alvanley giving up an ugly aunt in exchange for two ugly cousins of Augustus Chesterfield’s, and these the bassesse of London. It never came out in a finer manner. You and I remember about four years ago when the Sarpent came gliding into Almack’s – and no woman spoke to him, and he – even the Sarpent’s own self, looked daunted; and now he sent out his cards naming on them the pretty sister of the family, asking Lady Caroline Murray,252 and leaving out the eldest and youngest sister (tho’ Lady Mansfield was the first reputable person who took him up at all); desiring 22 of the prettiest girls in London to come in costume – patterns and directions sent with the card – and I actually heard people of good character, who have stooped to ask him constantly to dinner, lamenting that now he would not look at them for fear of being obliged to ask them. He called to ask the Barings – at nine o’clock the night before the breakfast, apologised for not having been able to spare an invitation for them before, and added, “the only condition I make is a new gown; I believe there is still time for that.” They went! In new gowns! I believe there never was a more beautiful breakfast when all was done – those sort of men will succeed! Everybody seemed pleased with it. What stories may have risen from it have not yet transpired. And Mr. de Roos said to Lady Jersey, he trusted the whole thing had been done most correctly – he should be miserable if there could be even a surmise of the slightest impropriety…! Fanny and I sent our excuse – partly from not wishing to go, and then it would have been necessary to spend immensely on dress, which I hate. There is such a story about the Miss Strutts253 asking for an invitation, too long to write, but so amusing. Your own affectionate

E. E.

[John Wilson Croker in a letter to Lord Hertford gave the following account of the Boyle Farm breakfast.

“The great ‘Carousal’ of the year has been the fête at Boyle Farm on Saturday last. I could fill three letters to give you any account of this entertainment, and of all the impertinences which preceded and accompanied it. It was exclusive to the last degree; the founders of the feast, Alvanley, Chesterfield, Castlereagh, H. de Roos, and Robert Grosvenor, balloted, it is said, for every name proposed for invitation. The wags say that Lord and Lady Grosvenor had four black balls; on which Robert Grosvenor said that really he could not be of it if he were not to ask Papa and Mama. Upon this he was allowed to invite them, but on an engagement that they should not come. People who were shabby enough to ask for invitations were well served in the answers they usually got; the men were rejected because they were old or vulgar, and the ladies because they were ugly.

It was really amusing to hear at the Opera the reasons which the excluded ladies gave for being seen at so unfashionable a place as the Opera was that night. I will not make you stare with all the fables which are reported, roads watered with Eau de Cologne, 500 pair of white satin shoes from Paris to counteract the damp of the green turf. More gallons of Roman Punch than Meux’s great brewing vats would hold. Fire-works ordered on this scale. The Vauxhall man was asked what was the greatest expense he could go to, and then ordered to double it. And so I need hardly add that I was not invited, but it really, and without exaggeration, was a most splendid fête. Alex. Baring calculated the expense at £15,000; but no one else that I have heard carries it higher than £3000 or £3500.”]

Miss Eden to Miss VilliersBIGODS, ESSEX,Wednesday, July 1827.

MY DEAREST THERESA, If you are still in town, which I expect and hope, call in Grosvenor Street late on Friday (after your Aunt) and you will have the felicity of finding me, and perhaps of taking me home to dinner.

George writes me word to-day that there never was such a mistake as my being out of London (which I cannot understand, as by his own account it is a desert), and that he finds it quite impossible to make up his summer plans without seeing me, and if I cannot come up alone, he must come and fetch me. Then Mary says she shall go demented if I am not here again by the 1st of August; so to save them both all further trouble I shall go up Friday for a few days, hear what George has to say, see you, take leave of the Copleys, finish up the House Accounts, claim my allowance, pay my bills, lock up the tea and sugar, look over the House Linen, go to the Play, call on Lady Grantham, and then come back to stay, if George leaves me time enough, till Mary is confined. She insists on my being with her (I mean in the house), and, of course, I had rather too be with her if she likes it; but if an equally near relation should happen about the same time to require my attendance on the drop at Newgate, I should prefer that employment of the two. Shorter and pleasanter, I guess. I am so disgusted with our foolish laws which could not hang, could not even punish, that William Sheen254 who cut off his baby’s head. It appears we may all kill any child, so as we call it by a wrong name; and as nursing disagrees with Mary, I have some thoughts of calling her baby Peter Simkins, and cutting off his head as soon as it is born. But I must say that our laws never are of any use when there is a real crime to be punished.