Miss Eden's Letters

CHAPTER VII

1829-1830

MY DEAREST THERESA, How attentive we become! frightened to death at the idea of our near meeting, unwritten to. I had your Genoa letter three days ago in the leisure of Hertingfordbury, where I have been Eastering, and could have drawn my pen on the spot to answer you, but I thought some account of the Hatfield theatricals would be more diverting than pure unadulterated daffy-down-dillies and cowslips.

Robert and I went over to Hatfield on Monday, which was the second repetition of the plays. The 1st piece was “A Short Reign and a Merry One.” Mr. Phipps the chief performer; Major Keppel very good; Mr. Egerton clever; Lady Salisbury316 herself I thought the only failure, but some people thought her good, so perhaps I was wrong. Her dress disfigured her cruelly. The second piece was Lady Dacre’s317 translation of the Demoiselle à Marier– Lady F. Leveson, Mr. J. Wortley, and Lord Morpeth the chief performers; and it was impossible anything could be better. In short, the whole evening has lowered my opinion of the merits of professional people. I went expecting to find the gentlefolk all tolerable sticks on the stage, awkward, affected, and only helped through by an indulgent public, and I found I never had laughed more heartily, never had seen a play really well acted in all its parts before, and Lady S., whom I thought the least good, was only objectionable because she was like an actress on the real stage.

The singing was very pretty. Mr. Ashley, Mr. Wortley, Lady F. Leveson, all distinguished themselves. At the end of the first piece, each of the performers sung a little Vaudeville couplet, and Jim Wortley sang one to the Duke of Wellington, who was in the front row, that was applauded and encored and applauded again, and chorussed with great noise. It turned, of course, upon the hero, and the double crown, and Waterloo, and Catholics – you know how these little ideas are dished up – and there was an allusion to the same effect in the Prologue, also received with acclamations.

The Duke seemed very much pleased, and told George to-day the Hatfield theatricals were very good fun. I meant to make this only a half sheet, but I see a long stream of untouched topics before me, so here goes for a whole sheet and rather wider lines… The Duke of Norfolk, Lord Clifford, etc., took their seats yesterday under the auspices of Julia, Lady Petre,318 and the two Miss Petres,319 and several Catholic ladies grouped under our Protestant throne, and now there only remains to come the introduction of that wily dangerous Edward Petre into the House of Commons, and England must fall, and then, I suppose, will get up and begin again.

Poor Lady Derby320 died on Friday after great sufferings and a very long illness. I think it ought to be made a rule of the odd game we all play here that those old attached couples should die together Baucis and Philemon fashion. The survivor’s is a hard place.

Fanny has been, of course, very anxious and unhappy, and has certainly lost a very kind friend in Lady Derby, who expressed the greatest affection for her to the last.

We shall not be the least settled at Greenwich, or near it, when you come back. A fortnight ago when we went there the workmen said they thought they would be out of the house in ten days. George went there yesterday, and they said they thought in about a fortnight more they should have done! A month hence, perhaps, they will ask six weeks more – that is the way painters generally go on. However, our wonderful weather excuses them. It is colder than Christmas and rains eternally. As far as we are concerned it has done its worst. We could not let this house till we find another to go into, and we shall not easily find a tenant after this week, so you will find us here, and here we shall probably stay till the 1st of June.

I only came to town yesterday, so I know little London news. People are dying rather than otherwise. I do not know whether there is much else going on. There is the Drawing-room to-morrow. Malibran has been rather a disappointment to the musical world, I hear, but I have not seen her. F. Robinson pays unremitting court to Lady Emily Cowper. I cannot conceive anything so tiresome, particularly at her age, when, as I remember, the pride of one’s life was to be distinguished by older people than oneself.321 Moreover, that dear good-looking bore, G. Cole, holds it to be his duty to stick by Frederick and flirt en tiers as well as he can. We have grown to be a very depraved set of incendiaries, and it makes me perfectly miserable to think of the peril of our beautiful cathedrals. York Minster gone, and two days ago an attempt was made to set Westminster Abbey on fire. The fire was put out without much harm being done, but no clue has been found to the man. The country is too full; a great deal of distress; great national debt; a redundancy of Spitalfields weavers; and in the course of a good hanging they might hit on these incendiaries, and no sacrifice would be too great for Westminster Abbey.

You know I let your house for three weeks, and the Vansittarts liked it. It seemed odd and unpleasant visiting anybody but you there. Come home soon. God bless you. Love to Mrs. V. Your ever affectionate

MY DEAREST THERESA, There never was such provocation, such a combination of untoward events. I was in town to-day, went up to return Maria Copley to her home, could have brought you back with me; and Lady Buckinghamshire’s carriage which goes up to town to-morrow morning would have taken you home again. I just ask you, “Did you ever?” Songez-y un peu! Such a plain path so entirely missed. I like you to know the worst, because there is no use in my ranting and raving about as I have this evening, if you do not do your share. I wonder when you wrote to me. If only last night, the thing could not have been helped. You never could have had an answer in time, but if you wrote on Saturday, which I should think was more probable, I just ask you if it is not a little provoking? Now we shall have no talk at all, ever again, our minds must be so over-loaded that writing will be of no earthly use, and you will not see our home while it is new and pretty – in short, there never was such a misfortuneable occurrence. I went on hoping till eight you would come. If it had happened yesterday I should not have wondered. Till that unfortunate day we had all been happier here than we ever had been in our lives, but yesterday was “a day of misfortunes,” like Rosamond’s day in Miss Edgeworth’s book. The footman was suddenly laid up by a violent attack of gout; one of the maid-servants was taken dangerously ill; one of the horses took to kicking itself, of all the things in the world! and hurt itself very much, which it deserves, but it is very inconvenient to us; the cream was sour at breakfast; we got quite wet through going to church, and again coming back; the puppy and kitten fought; there was no mint sauce to the lamb at dinner; – in short, “it was a sight worthy of the gods to see a great man (or, as in my case, a great woman) struggling with such calamities.”

We preserved our cheerfulness wonderfully. I wish you had seen our house; we are all so fond of it. My friends have exhausted themselves in presents with their names, and have now begun again anonymously. I brought from Grosvenor Street a box to-day directed to me, containing a lamp for the drawing-room, and now it is hung up I should be glad to know who sent it.

I went to wish Lady Bath joy a week ago.323 I never was so pleased with any marriage as that. Is Lord Henry324 settled or not? I understood he went down to the Grange meaning to propose, and on Wednesday I heard a long account of his visit, of Mrs. Baring’s agonies of fidget because he did not speak out, and of Harriet’s confidence in his intentions, and how they both grew hourly more shy and more silent. But he had let all the rest of the party disperse, and was staying on alone at the Grange, and was expected to have stayed with the purpose of proposing without so many witnesses. Poor fellow! He seems to have been shyer than ever. I know you will again think it odd of me, and I am sure I cannot explain it, but by dint of hearing so much of their anxieties, and knowing what his must have been, I grow fidgetty as one does reading a story, that the catastrophe should be happy.

It will be a shame if he makes her unhappy. Otherwise, I do not know that they will suit very well. Lady Bath asked me about it, and did not seem very anxious for it, – said he required animation. I hardly knew what to say when she said she was afraid by what she heard of Miss Baring that was not the line, etc. I rode off on her amiability, good sense, £50,000, etc. I hope Lady Bath may take a fancy to her; she will want something to replace Char, but I rather doubt it.

Where am I to direct to you? I could be at home all the week in case any of your other engagements should fail, only come in time to prevent my dining at Eastcombe or elsewhere. Your ever affectionate

I took a solemn oath that if the post brought me any letter this morning I would, on the first sight of Bidgood with the silver waiter orné de lettres, tear myself from my drawing and give up the rest of the morning to this detestable writing employment; and, you brute, there is a letter from you, and a good letter too, and I must answer it. And yet if you were to see my drawing! I got up at half-past eight this morning that I might have a long enjoyment of it, and of course have been interrupted every five minutes, though I was drapering a red velvet cloak with all sorts of beautiful catching lights and carmine and ultra marine and all the lovely colours in the world mixed up in it. My black heads are framed and hung up in George’s room. I do not like to say how they look, but the room is evidently improved within the last week. I have been at Putney from a Saturday to a Wednesday, my dear – “a procédé,” as Mr. de Roos would call it, a friendly attention, but extremely inconvenient, and moreover I think it bored me ever so little – not much – but it did not amuse me. I like the girls, of all things, and wish for nothing better than a talk with Anne, but there is a want of sense about Lady Grantham which becomes wearisome in a very long tête-à-tête, and we had several. Lord Henry stayed a whole week at the Grange, but nothing came of it. Let us fondly hope the discouragement came from her side. I do not fancy the woman ever being made the victim; and perhaps she found him duller than she expected, and Mr. Baring probably found him poorer. Anyhow, it might not have answered, and I daresay it will all do very well as it is; or he may, in a thoroughly manly spirit (by which I mean the usual conduct of a man) have settled that though he could propose any day, he could go out grouse shooting only on the 12th of August, and that the grouse might grow wild, while she would remain tame (I have only put that in for the love of antithesis, not from pique or attraction), and so that he had better attend to the grouse first, and come back to the Grange afterwards. Lady Bath said he met her and the Buccleughs at Longleat and was in great spirits, and she believed did not care a straw for Miss Baring, but she knew nothing from him of it…

I passed all Wednesday afternoon with Lady Bath, who was in the highest good-humour, and the whole family resplendent with happiness, except dear old Bath, who handsomely avows his joy was a mistake, and he has not the least idea what is to become of him. I saw Char, and the Duke too; and after they all went out riding Lady Bath and I went poking all over the house, looking for the presents he had given her. Such quantities of pretty things! And these were only his little daily gifts, for the jewels were not finished. “The diamonds and emeralds will both be superb,” Lady Bath said; “but I think the pearls the handsomest set I ever saw.”

Think of that little Char with all those things! And she looks as simple and unaffected as ever, – very shy and very happy.