Miss Eden's Letters Part 12

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 n.o.body 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 role 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 t.i.t-bits have given way to mutton chops and the coa.r.s.e nutrition adapted to an unimpaired const.i.tution.

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 f.a.n.n.y Campbell sails or boils to Calais....

Your own

PAMELA.

_Lady Campbell to Miss Eden._

STRATHFIELD 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's[187] 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 Ca.s.siobury connexion that makes you so lax.

_Miss Eden to her Niece, Eleanor Colvile._

SPROTBOROUGH [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 G.o.dmothers 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's[192]

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. Lamb[193] 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 Villiers._

_Eyam_, _Sat.u.r.day_ [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 pa.s.sed 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.