Miss Eden's Letters Part 14

Sir Guy nearly died of Crambo, and was very near taking a Dictionary with him the next time. But as he is not at all of the go-along tribe he kicked, and would not cramb.

The event of the next time was Charades, and our enthusiasm knew no bounds when Lord Dudley joined the crew, and appeared with his coat turned inside out, and enacted a chimney-sweeper, and rattled a stick upon a bit of wood. Our rapture was indescribable, and it reminded me of the feelings of those who in ancient times beheld great men doing little things! Anecdotes which Historians always dwell on with that delight which human beings naturally feel on seeing a dry patch in a bog, or a green patch in a waste--the man who ploughed in Rome after heading the Yeomanry or Militia of the Republic; the man who picked up sh.e.l.ls near the same place; that other who had the horticultural turn for sowing Lettuces--all these men were nothing in effect to Lord Dudley playing at sweep. I felt it deeply.

It was that day too he said when they offered him toasted cheese, "Ah!

yes; to-day is Toasted-cheese day, and yesterday was Herring day!!"

How we all laughed!!!

How goodly is it to earn fair Fame! Once get your charter for a Wit, and you may sit down with all the comfort of being a fool for the rest of your life. One joke a year--not so much--even one _bad_ joke now and then, is a better tenure than all those forms of carrying a Hawk, or the King's Pepper-box, at the Coronation, for an estate.

We had a ball at Bowood the night before Twelfth Night. It went off very well indeed. I had the pleasure of cramming my small Pam[210] into a pink body and seeing it dance, and seeing everybody make a fuss with it because it was by many degrees the smallest thing in the room....

No; there never, never, never, was anything so cross as your not coming to Bowood this year, because I had looked to it just as you did, and had even distressed myself about how I should manage to see enough of you, and whether Lady Lansdowne would facilitate our intercourse, and I meant to show you all my new editions of children, and even make you superintend the new one, for certainly the one you picked up in Cadogan Place is the prettiest of the whole set. I cannot tell you how kind Lady Lansdowne is to me, and she need be so after putting you off; but she does really load me with kindnesses. However, we are not to stay in this house. It smokes and is too dear for us, so alas! I am again hunting a domicile. We get poorer and poorer, but as Guy bears it better and better, I don't mind.

I am glad you see William.[211] He is so dear a creature! His Family cannot forgive him for having picked out a little happiness for himself his own way.... Your affectionate

PAMELA C.

_Miss Eden to Miss Villiers._

_March 30_ [1826].

MY DEAR THERESA, Robert and his wife are coming for a week to Grosvenor Street, and I must be there to order their dinner and sweep their room, so I shall go there on Sat.u.r.day and stay in town ten days. I shall be very glad to see you again. Pray come as soon as you can--Sat.u.r.day afternoon if possible. I want you to come in the light of something good, to take the taste of going back to London out of my mouth. It is an ugly place, is it not? Probably I shall forget my troubles to-morrow if I do not _fix_ them by mentioning them to you to-day. I always find that when I have withstood a strong temptation to mention to my friend the worry of the moment, it ceases to be a worry much sooner than the grief which has gone through the process of discussion. But the struggle is unpleasant.

I liked Malachi particularly.[212] I have not seen the answers, but hear they are very amusing, which is a pity. I have long vowed never to be amused by anything Mr. Croker should say or do, be it ever so entertaining, and "shall I lay perjury on my precious soul?" as Shylock says, for a mere pamphlet?

I have been trying to read _The Last of the Mohicans_ and have come to a full stop at the end of the first volume. I am sure you will not like it. Those vulgar Mohicans only wear one long scalp-lock of hair--they don't _creper_! Nasty savages! And so far from wearing full sleeves, it is painfully obvious that they wear no sleeves at all, and not much else in matter of cloathes.

Have you been uneasy about Sarah? Sister would have been if she could, but it came out unfortunately by the admission of those who saw her, that she had not been quite so ill as angry, and Sister weakly goes backwards and forwards to London on the chance of being admitted, and then hears Sarah is gone out airing. They say it is a fine sight to see the preparations for her airing. She "plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven" and the clerks of the Treasury; but whether she has succeeded in making any "angel weep" but dear Robin,[213] I do not know. However, it is wrong to laugh, because I believe nervous complaints are great suffering, and at all events poor Mr. R. was frightened.

Good-bye, my love to your mother. Your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Miss Villiers._

TUNBRIDGE WELLS, _Sunday, August 6_ [1826].

DEAREST THERESA, I had such a desire to write to you yesterday because it was not post day and I had no frank, and to-day it goes all against the grain, because I have plenty of time and George is come back to give me a frank and my letter can go. But you always make me write first; why, I never make out. Have you any good reason for it?

Our Tunbridge speculation is answering so well to us. I always knew I should like it, but George's content, indeed actual enjoyment of the place and way of life, surprises me. We have such a clean house, just finished, and we are its first inhabitants, so we run no hazard of being devoured by a flea hacknied in the arts of devouring and tormenting. I was just going to bother myself by inventing a description of our way of life, when George showed me his answer to a vain-glorious description of the joys of Worthing, which Mr. Wall, who is living there, has just sent, meaning to put us out of conceit with Tunbridge by the vulgar notion of the Agar-Ellis'[214] man-cook and carriage and four, and so I shall copy part of George's answer.

It opens with a moral: "We are better off and happier than is properly compatible with a life of innocence and vegetation. Our house is delightfully clean and comfortable. The living very good. Fish caught at eight in the morning at Hastings is devoured here at three. The eggs, cream, and b.u.t.ter, are brought to us in an hourly succession of freshness. All the material of the kitchen excellent, and the appet.i.te too pure to think that it is a female that cooks it. Then a few gla.s.ses of hock and some coffee, and an hour's repose, and we meet at Lady C.

Greville's,[215] Alvanley[216] and his sisters, and the F.

Levesons.[217] We a.s.sort ourselves upon horses, into barouches, etc., and start for some of our inexhaustible lions; and we end our evening together with the feast of nonsense and the flow of tea." He ends his letter with a promise to be at Norman Court the 1st of September, and adds, "My guns are at home and the locks click sweetly. Water the turnips when it does not rain."

How much more foolish men are than women, particularly about their amus.e.m.e.nts. We none of us write to each other about our white sattin gowns that are hanging sweetly up at home.

George does not mention what is I think the most curious part of our life--that I am actually dressed and down at the Wells every morning before half-past eight, and he generally arrives only five minutes later. We dine at three and go to bed at eleven, and are in a ravenous state of hunger at all hours; and the consequence is that I can already walk three or four miles without being tired.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Kent arrived two days ago, and we live in a transport of loyalty. We insisted on illuminating for her and dragging her into the town, which naturally alarmed her, so she put off coming, meaning to step in un.o.bserved. But that our loyalty could not suffer; and I never stepped out without 50 yards of rope in one pocket, and a Roman candle in the other, for fear of accidents. However, I believe she was allowed to drive up to her own door, but there were some fine illuminations afterwards.

Lord Alvanley is an amusing incident at this sort of place, and it is a pity he is not more likeable, because there is certainly n.o.body more amusing. He goes away Tuesday, but he liked it so much he means to come back again. We all parted yesterday evening, quite worn out with laughing, and yet I cannot recollect what he said. But it was very delightful. Except these tea-drinkings we could not be quieter or more independent in a country home of our own. n.o.body visits of a morning, and in the evenings they are all in their coloured morning dresses.

You will be happy to hear that our three-shilling coa.r.s.e straw bonnets are only a shade too good for the style of dress here.

I wish you were here. The man who built this house might have guessed we should like to have you. The upholsterer knew it, for there are more beds than enough, two in each room, but there are only three good bedrooms, and neither f.a.n.n.y nor I could sleep except in a room by ourselves. But you must let me know your plans, because George will be obliged to go away in a fortnight more, and unless any of my sisters mean to take his place, which I do not suppose they will do, I think you might give us a visit. It is the sort of life you would like. I have not done so much drawing for years as during the last week. I have copied those six Prints on six cards for that tiresome Hertford fair, and they looked so pretty in that small shape I was quite sorry to send them to Robert.

What nice weather you have for your Gravesend expedition. Is the great review of Tide-waiters[218] taking place to-day? I have not the least idea what they are, what are the origin, manners, and customs of the nation of Tide-waiters? If they are people who wait till the tide serves they will flourish for ever. The poor dear tide never serves anybody, and if they gain their bread by tide-waiting, what floods of tears they must shed at Oth.e.l.lo's description of the Pontic Sea, which knows no retiring ebb....

I am decidedly in what Swift calls "a high vein of silliness" this afternoon; but it is the fault of the weather and of being in the country, which, after all, is the only thing that makes actual happiness. Your affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Miss Villiers._

THE GRANGE,[219]

_Sunday_, 1826.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I should have written sooner to tell you where to write to me, but I was rather in hopes George would let me stay another month at Tunbridge. Everybody was going away, so we might have had a very small house for half the price we gave for ours, and as the servants will eat whether they are there or in Grosvenor Street, I thought we might have lived more economically than in posting all over England. However, after much correspondence, George, who terrifies me by the way in which he spends his own money, settled that the expenses were nearly equal, and that being the case that he would rather have us with him. "I never met with such an instance of politeness all my life," as the immortal Collins observes,--not the Professor Collins, but the far greater "Pride and Prejudice" Collins. And so we packed up and came here, and I expect George and Mr. Wall to arrive every minute.

In shooting season they only travel on Sundays, I observe. We lived at Tunbridge almost entirely with the F. Levesons. I had a great idea that I should dislike her, which was a mistake, and if I were given to _engouements_, I should suppose I were suffering under one now for her, only it came very gradually, which is not the case with that complaint, I believe. First a decrease of dislike, and then not caring whether she were in the room or not, and then a willingness to walk towards her house, and then an impossibility to walk in any other direction.

The last fortnight we had the de Roos's, who dined with the F.

Levesons's as often as we did, or else we all dined with the Peels;[220]

and if we dined early, we rode after dinner and met again for tea. I can ride four hours at a time now without the least fatigue and walk in proportion. I like the Peels too, only I wish Lady Jane would bind him apprentice to a tinker, or a shoemaker, or to anybody who would make him work, as he seems to have an objection to the liberal professions. From mere want of employment, he has fancied himself into bad health, and does nothing but hold a smelling-bottle to his nose all day, even at dinner. How it would annoy me if I were his wife!--because he has talents enough, and can be pleasant when he is roused. I cannot think how any clever man who has not estate enough to find his property an occupation, can consent to be thrown by his own choice out of all professions. I should be a lawyer to-morrow if I were Lawrence Peel, or a lawyer's wife if I were Lady Jane. She might persuade him into it I am sure, if she would try, and it would be so much better economy than consulting Doctor Mayo three times a day, which he does sometimes.

There is n.o.body here but Lord Carnarvon and his daughter, and Mr. Newton the painter, and one of the sons of the house. This is such a delicious house now it is finished, and heaps of new books and good pictures.

I intend to make much of a friendship with Newton. Mr. Baring tells me he has seen a great deal of you, which is an additional reason why I should make his acquaintance. He seems to me clever and paradoxical and a little Yankeeish and perhaps conceited, but that picture of Macheath[221] is a great _set off_ against any faults he may have. It is impossible, too, that I can know anything about him, as I only saw him for five minutes at the other end of the breakfast-table; but I like to state my first impressions. They are invariably wrong, and now I know that, they are just as good as if they were right, I may believe with much a.s.surance the contrary of what I think.

Is your brother George in town? And did I fancy, or could he have told me that I might enclose to him at the Custom House a parcel above the usual weight. I want to send to my sister-in-law some interesting little caps I have been making which will not be much above weight. Your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Miss Villiers._

HERTINGFORDBURY, _Monday, September_, 1826.

MY DEAREST THERESA, Your account of yourself pleases me, partly because it is evident the proper remedy for your illness has been found out, and also because you write so much more legibly, which is a good sign....

I do not know what state of appet.i.te you are in or how much you eat, but could not you live lower, and so require fewer leeches? Give up that egg you mix so neatly with your tea and put on the leeches less.

You ask if I care about the present state of politics? Why, dear child, I never cared for anything half so much in my life,--almost to the pa.s.s of being sorry I am out of town this week. I am trying to _subside_, simply because I do not think any of our people will get anything in the scramble; but still it is amusing to see such a mess as all the other side is in, and any change must be for the better, you know we think....