Lady John Russell Part 5

For a few days Lady f.a.n.n.y seems to have felt that the matter was irrevocably settled: "The more I think of what has happened, the more I bewilder myself--I therefore do not think at all."

But on the following day she writes: "Though I do not think, I dream. I dreamt of him last night on some of Catherine's bride cake, and that Miss Lister wrote to me of him as one whose equal could not be found in the whole world."

Of one thing she was certain, she did not want to leave her home: "The west hills looking beautiful as we walked round the church. What a pleasure it is to have a church in such a situation! One worships G.o.d the better from seeing His beauty so displayed around.... Walked in the glen and wandered about the burn and top of Mama's glen, wondering how anybody could ever ask me to leave all that is so much too dear.

"Yesterday [October 23] received a letter from Miss Lister. Tells me a great deal about him--the way in which he first named me since, and his keeping the book, and much more that is very, very touching; but I will not sentimentalize even to my journal, for fear of losing my firmness again."

Meanwhile, gossip was busy coupling her name with Lord John's, and the Press published the rumour.

_Lady Minto to Lady Mary Abercromby_

MINTO, _November_ 9, 1840

... You will see in the papers the report of f.a.n.n.y's marriage to Lord John Russell. It is very annoying to her, and I had a few lines (very touching) from him begging me to have it contradicted, which I had already done. If you ask me my reasons why, I cannot tell you, but I have a sort of feeling that she will marry him still. Gina says certainly not, and neither Lizzy nor I think her opinions or feelings changed, but I feel it _in my skin_!!!

Still, these feelings are not infallible.... Will you tell me if I wish it or not? For I have now thought so much about it I don't know my own mind. If I knew that she would not marry _at all_, if she did not marry _him_, then I should most miserably lament that she refused him; but I also know as certainly, that if she told me that upon second thoughts she had accepted him, I should be too unhappy to be able to look as I ought to do. In short, dearest Mary, I heartily wish it had never happened. I was obliged to tell John [Elliot] of it, as the report was going to be made a subject of joking, which would have been very unpleasant for f.a.n.n.y. He was very much surprised, and notwithstanding his great dislike to disparity of years, he regretted her refusal deeply. He is a great admirer of Lord John's, and was delighted with him when he was here. He says that in spite of the drawbacks he is clearly of the opinion that she has made a great mistake, and hopes that it may take another turn still. You may fancy how I am longing to talk to your Father about it. He says in his last letter that his eyes were only just opened to Lord John's being an old man, when he looked on him in this new light....

MINTO, _November_ 15, 1840

My birthday--it frightens me to be twenty-five. To think how days, months, and years have slipped away and how unfulfilled resolutions remain to reproach me. Long walk with Papa--talked to me about Lord John very kindly. Had a long letter from Miss Lister--tells me a good deal about him, and the more I hear the more I am forced to admire and like. Then why am I so ungrateful? Oh! why so obstinate?

I can only hope for the sake of my character that Dryden is right that "Love is not in our choice but in our fate."

At the beginning of the new year the family moved up to London. The next entry, dated from the Admiralty, expressive in its brevity, runs: "A surprising number of visitors, one very alarming, no less than Lord John--and I saw him." Then, a week later, on February 8: "The agitation of last Monday over again.... After all, perhaps he only wished to show that he is friendly still. It is like his kindness, but he did not look merry."

In March she wrote to her married sister, Lady Mary Abercromby, an account of her feelings and perplexities.

ADMIRALTY, _March_ 16, 1841

DEAREST MARY,--Tho' it is not nearly my day for writing, a long letter from you to Mama, princ.i.p.ally about myself, has determined me to do so--and to do so this minute, while I feel that I have courage for the great effort (yes, you may laugh, but it is a terrible effort) of saying to you all that you have the best right to abuse me for not having said before. If it was really _saying_, oh how happy I should be! but there is something so terribly distinct in one's thoughts as soon as they are on paper, and I have longed each day a thousand times to have you by my side to help me to read them and to listen to all my nonsense. I felt it utterly impossible to write them, altho' I also felt that my silence was most unfair upon you and would have made me, in your place, either very suspicious or very angry. It _has_ made you suspicious, but now let it only make you angry--as angry as you please--for I have _not_ changed and I do not suppose I ever shall. When we first came to town, nothing having taken place between us since my positive refusal from Minto, except the contradiction sent by us to the report in the papers, Miss Lister asked me if I was the same as ever; and when I said yes, and forbade her the subject for the future, she only begged that I would see him and allow myself to know him better. I said I would do so, provided she was quite sure he was ready to blame himself alone for the consequences, which she said he would. Accordingly, wherever we met I allowed him to speak to me. I begged Lizzy always to join in our talk, if she could, as it made me much happier, but this she has not done nearly as much as I wished. Whenever I knew we were to meet him, I also took care to tell Lizzy that it would be no pleasure to me, and that if it was at dinner, I hoped I should not sit next to him. I said these things to her oftener than I should naturally have done, because I saw that in her wish to disbelieve them she really did so, and I wished to make her understand me, in case either Papa or Mama or the boys should be speaking of it before her. You will say, why did I not speak more to Mama herself?--partly because I was afraid of bringing forward the subject, partly because I knew what I had to say would make her sorry, and partly because I was not at times so _very_ sure as to have courage to say it must all come to an end. However, after a dinner at Lady Holland's last week, when he was all the evening by me, I felt I _must_ speak--that it would be very wrong to allow it to go on in the same way, and that we had no right to expect the world to see how all advances to intimacy, since we came to town, have been made by him in the face of a refusal. I do not despise the gossip of the world where there is so much foundation for it, and I have felt it very disagreeable to know that busy eyes were upon us several times. It must therefore stop, but do not imagine that I have been acting without thought. I am perfectly easy about _him_--I mean that he will blame n.o.body but himself, as I have taken care never to understand anything that he has said that he might mean to be particular, and the few times that he ventured to approach the subject he spoke in so perfectly hopeless and melancholy a way as to satisfy me. I am also easy about Miss Lister, as only a week ago she said how sorry she was to see that I was happier in society without than with him; but both he and they must see that it cannot go on so. What a stone I am--but it is needless to speak of that. Only when I think of all his goodness and excellence, above all his goodness in fixing upon me among so many better fitted to him, I first wonder and wonder whether he really can be in earnest, then reproach myself bitterly for my hardness--and then the children: to think of rejecting an opportunity of being so useful--or at least of trying to be so! All these thoughts, turned over and over in my mind oftener than I myself knew before we left Minto, _did_ make me think that perhaps I had decided rashly. Now do not repeat this, dear Mary; I have said more to you than to anybody yet--but I am sorry it is time to stop, I have so much more to say. I cannot say how grateful I am to Papa and Mama for leaving me so free in all this, and to you for writing.

Ever your most affectionate sister, f.a.n.n.y

The day after this letter was written she saw Lord John again. "He called and had a long conversation with Mama.... Mama liked him better than ever."

_Lady Minto to Lady Mary Abercromby_

ADMIRALTY, _March_ 18, 1841

... I must now return to _the_ subject. I told you of the conversation I had with f.a.n.n.y when she spoke so openly and so sensibly of her feelings.... She said she was too old to think it necessary to be what is called desperately in love, and without feeling that his age was an objection or that the disparity was too great, yet, she said, if he had been a younger man she would have decided long ago. And that is the truth. It is his age alone that prevents her at once deciding in his favour. It prevents those feelings arising in her mind, without which it would be a struggle to accept him, and this she never will do. She was therefore desirous that he should know the state of her feelings, that she might be again at her ease. He had seen her manner cold towards him, and wrote to say that he would call upon me yesterday. I was _horribly_ frightened, as I hate lovers, and you must allow that it was a difficult task to go through.... However, he put me so completely at my ease by his sensible, open, gentle manner, that my task was less difficult than I expected--except that I fell in love with him so desperately, he touched my heart so deeply that I could scarcely refrain from promising him f.a.n.n.y whenever he chose.

There is a depth of feeling and humility about him, and a candour and generosity in his judgments, that I never saw so strongly in anyone before, and every word that he spoke made me regret more and more the barrier that prevents him from becoming one of us. I said, of course, f.a.n.n.y's wish and ours could only be for him to do what he considered best for his own happiness, and that half-measures did not answer; that he now knew the whole truth and it was for him to judge how to act. He said then, "I cannot have a doubt; I will visit you less frequently; I will speak very little to you in public, but I cannot, unless you positively forbid me, renounce the intimacy now established with your family." I said, of course, that it would be a great happiness to us all not to lose him, but that I was very doubtful of the wisdom of his decision, as it might only be rendering himself more unhappy. "That," he said, "is my affair, and I am willing to run the risk." ... f.a.n.n.y, to whom I told everything, says she is now quite happy, and her mind at ease.

He seems, however, to have made up his mind to keep away from them for some weeks. The next mention of him is on May 7th, more than a month later:

Morning visit from Lord John. Said he had a great speech to make this evening on sugar.... Billy came to dinner full of admiration of the speech. Honest, n.o.ble, clever. Well, we shall go out with honour.

This speech on sugar was made at a crisis of particular difficulty. The debate was the first important discussion in Parliament on the new principle of Free Trade. Greville describes Lord John's speech as an "extraordinarily good one," and Lord Sydenham [19] wrote from Canada:

I have read your speech upon opening the debate on the sugar question with feelings of admiration and pleasure I cannot describe. The Free Traders have never been orators since Mr. Pitt in early days. We have hammered away with facts and figures and some argument, but we could not elevate the subject and excite the feelings of the people. At last you, who can do both, have fairly undertaken it, and the cause has a champion worthy of it.

[19] Lord Sydenham said later, "Lord John is the n.o.blest man it has ever been my fortune to follow" (Spencer Walpole's "Life of Lord John Russell").

Mr. Baring, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed to lower the import duty on foreign and colonial timber and sugar. Lord John, before the Budget speech, announced his intention of moving the House into a committee on the Corn Laws. During the course of the eight days' debate he admitted that the proposal of the Ministry would be a fixed duty of 8s. a quarter on wheat.

It was on the occasion of this proposal being discussed in the Cabinet that Melbourne, at the close of the meeting, made his famous remark, "By the by, there is one thing we haven't agreed upon; what are we to say? Is it to make our corn dearer or cheaper, or to make the price steady? I don't care which; but we had better all say the same thing."

On June 4th, the very evening Lord John had intended to introduce his measure, the Government was just defeated on Peel's motion of a want of confidence: "Bill woke me at four this morning with the sad words, 'Beaten by one! Oh dear, oh dear! To expect a triumph and see it won by the enemy.

Never mind; our friends deserve success if they cannot command it.... Party at Lady Palmerston's. He was there."

Four days later her hesitations came to an end, and they were engaged to be married.

Miss Lister wrote to Lord John on June 8th from Windsor Castle:

Oh! I am happier than I can tell you. G.o.d knows you have deserved all the good that may come to you, and I always felt it must be because of that. I long to be with you and to see her. ... Oh! I am so happy, but I can scarcely believe it yet. I hope Lady f.a.n.n.y will write and then I think I shall believe it.

Ever yours affectionately, Harriet Lister

June 9, 1841 Could not write on Monday or Tuesday. Saw him on Monday morning ... it was a strange dream all that day and is so still.... As soon as he had left me Mama came in. Oh my own dearest and best Mama, bless your poor weak but happy child. Then I saw Papa. What good it did me to see his face of real happiness!--then my brothers and sisters--I never saw William so overcome.

ADMIRALTY, _June_ 10, 1841

Tried to be busy in the morning ... but nothing would do. Must think and be foolish. He came in the afternoon and evening--brought me an emerald ring.... Miss Lister came--both of us stupid from having too much to say, but it was a great pleasure. Children here to tea with ours (all but Victoria) and very merry and kind to me. Dear precious children.

_Lady Minto to Lady Mary Abercromby_

ADMIRALTY, June 11, 1841

You must be longing so ardently for post-day that I hate to think of the uncomfortable letter this is likely to be; but as f.a.n.n.y is writing to you herself, my letter will be of less consequence. Oh the volumes and volumes I could write and long to write and the wee miserable things that I do write! I must at once begin by saying that f.a.n.n.y's happy face would, more than all I can write, convince you how perfectly satisfied and proud she is of the position she has put herself in; how it delights her to think of the son-in-law she has given to your Father, and the friend she has given your brothers. To me he is everything that my proudest wishes could have sought out for f.a.n.n.y. You know as well as me that it was not an ordinary person that could suit her; and it really is balm to my heart to see the way in which he treasures every word she says, and laughs at the innocence and simplicity of her remarks, and looks at her with such pride when he sees her keen and eager about the great and interesting events of the day, which most girls would neither know nor care about. I don't mean that he is absurd in his admiration of her, but it is evident how fully he appreciates the singular beauty of her character. In short, to sum up all I can say of him, he is in many respects a counterpart of herself. She is very open and at her ease with him, and I am quite as much at my ease with him as I was with Ralph....

_From Lady Mary Abercromby to Lord John Russell_

GENOA, _June_ 19, 1841

... You will every day discover more the great worth of what you have won. You cannot have known her long without admiring the extreme truth and purity of her mind; it is sensitive to a degree which those with more of worldly experience can scarcely understand, yet I feel sure you will watch over it, for it has a charm to those who can appreciate it which must make them dread to see it disturbed. It is a great privation to me to be so little acquainted with you, but believe me I cannot think of you as a stranger now that you belong to my dearest Sister, and that I look to you for her happiness. If you could think of me as a sister and treat me as such it would be a delight to me.

ADMIRALTY, _June_ 18, 1841

Very happy day--every day now happier than the one before. Oh will it--can it last? O G.o.d, enable me to thank Thee as I ought--to live a life of grat.i.tude to Thee.

CHAPTER III

1841