Miss Eden's Letters Part 16

Lord Grantham[235] arrived at the moment she expired. I wrote to him on Sat.u.r.day to say he had better come, or rather to ask him if he did not think so, and he came off instantly, and I am so glad now, for you have no idea of the good effect it had on Mr. R.

Poor Sarah surprised me more than anybody. She cried a great deal, but was perfectly reasonable in her grief, and has fortunately taken the turn of feeling that it is only by her exertions her poor husband can be supported at all, and she kept repeating all the morning how much worse her calamity might have been, that at all events she had him left and ought not to repine. She thanked Sister, and, in short, nothing could be better than her conduct.

All hours come to an end at last; all griefs find, or make, a place for themselves. Don't you know what I mean,--how they work themselves into the mind, and so, by degrees, the surface of life closes over and looks smooth again, and I always think what a blessing it is in these cases there are so many little things that must necessarily be talked over and done. It fills up the time.

Sarah and Mr. R. come here to-morrow, and then go to Nocton[236] for the funeral.

I think this day has lasted a year, and I cannot see to read, and my eyes are sore, and Sister cannot bear the light. In short, you must bear with me to-night. I am tired to death in my mind, and it rests me writing to somebody.

It was such a house of misery--the poor little French girl and the governess crying in one room; Warren[237] with his cold sarcastic manner talking to West, who was crying like a child. And yet he need not. He was right from the first, and perhaps that is a painful feeling, to think that all the misery he saw, might have been spared if he had not been thwarted....

There is nothing I would not have given to escape the journey to Nocton.

I had a sort of cowardly wish that George would not let me go (though I would have gone too, at all events), and I was almost sorry when his letter began, "You are quite right, and so go." And yet I have been often pretending to wish that I had more positive duties to do. We are such horrid hypocrites to ourselves. I am going to Nocton, I suppose, from the same feelings that lead Catholics to go up the Scala Sancta on their knees--a sort of superst.i.tion. It must be right, it is so unnatural and disagreeable; and yet I am very fond of Sister, and Sarah was once very kind to me, and is now again. It is very wrong; when you praised me in your letter it smote my conscience. Almost everybody but me has a pleasure in doing right. I have often thought how much you must have to learn on the subject of calamity for the loss of friends, but do not learn it before you must.

Lord Grantham has been such a comfort to them all. Your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Miss Villiers._

NOCTON, LINCOLNSHIRE, _Monday evening, December 13, 1826_.

Bless your foolish heart! No, child, there is nothing the matter--never _was_ anything worth mentioning. We have ruralized some time in this rustic Bedlam, and some of us got loose on Wednesday; but we are all caught and shut up again, and there is no harm done except 250 guineas gone and spent in post-horses, and we are all thin and exhausted with anxiety and shame, some for themselves, and some for others. I believe I sent you, at the time of Clarke's[238] last visit, my farce of the new "Mayor of Garratt," with the plot made out into scenes, and specimens of the dialogue; but a good five-act comedy has written itself since Wednesday. Sarah is willing to laugh at it all herself now, and does so, I hear;--and after all, poor thing, it is no wonder she is nervous about health just now. All her fears I can excuse, with the death of her child from mismanagement constantly weighing on her mind; and the folly she is betrayed into, her fear is responsible for; but as she knows that her mind is beyond her own control, the provoking thing is that from the moment she begins to be ungovernable, she refuses to see anybody except servants who cannot contradict her.

As long as Mr. Robinson is forthcoming that does not signify, as to a certain degree he prevents her doing anything outrageously foolish; but he was _took_ with a bad headache on Wednesday, such as he often has, a regular case of Calomel and black dose which the Lincoln doctors prescribed, and said he would be better the next day. But in the meanwhile Sarah worked herself into such a state that she sent off at eight in the morning two expresses, one for Clarke who lives in Norfolk, and another for Henry Ellis, Doctor Warren, West, and I fancy any others of the profession who chose to come. She would not see Sister, or rather speak to her; for Sister once went into her room and found her (who has not had her feet to the ground since I was here) walking about like anybody else, and actually _running_ into the library to write her letters.

Poor dear Mr. Robinson got quite well as the day went on and the dose went off, and then Sarah began to be frightened at what she had done; and then she saw Sister and was content to be advised, and a third messenger was sent off to stop all the doctors he could find on the road. He turned back Warren in his chaise and four at Biggleswade; and West in his chaise and four, a few miles beyond. Before the express came back, we were living in the pleasing expectation of going in to dinner,--Sister, Anne,[239] Mary, and I--each arm in arm with a doctor--Clarke, Warren, West, and Swan--the Lincoln man. I wanted to make a pleasant evening of it, as there was not much sickness about, and after dancing a quadrille with them that we should take a little senna tea, and then have a good jolly game at Snap-dragon with some real Epsom Salts.

I forgot to mention that Sarah, with fatigue and worry, had made herself so ill that a fourth express went on Thursday to fetch Clarke again. She makes all these people travel in chaises and four _par parenthese_; Clarke came on Sat.u.r.day night, and then it was to be broke to that dear good gull Mr. Robinson that any doctor whatever had been sent for. I had no idea before that she could have been enough afraid of him to have kept anything from him; but he even read that paragraph in the paper about himself and wondered what the mistake could be.

However, Sister, as usual, was persuaded to take a great deal of the sc.r.a.pe on her shoulders, and Clarke, who seems clever enough, undertook to announce and explain the rest. Mr. R. was, I heard, horribly annoyed at first, but is resigned now, and it is all smothered up in her dressing-room where she has shut him up, and I do not know when he will be allowed to call himself well again.

I hear she is very low now the excitement is over, but wisely declares she shall do just the same next time, and he begs he may go as his own express. Poor man! he has a bad prospect before him, but I do not think that he minds it.

She professes the degree of religious feeling that is seldom met with, and which appears to me inconsistent with any worldly feelings whatever, above all with her feelings for _self_. The _quant.i.ty_ of her religion it is impossible to deny, but I doubt its _quality_ being right; and when I see that her high-flown mystical ideas end in making everybody round her perfectly miserable, I go back to the suspicions I have entertained for some time that the old simple religion we were taught at four years old out of Watt's catechism is the real right thing after all. "If you are good, you will go to Heaven, and if you are naughty, etc., etc." You ought to know your Watt's catechism. I shall learn mine over again, and begin quite fresh in the most practical manner.

Oh, by the bye, and another thing I have found out and meant to tell you is, that Virtue is _not_ its own reward. It may be anybody's else, but it is not its own. I take the liberty of a.s.serting that my conduct here has been perfectly exemplary. I never behaved well before in my life, and I can safely add I never pa.s.sed so unpleasant a month.

Well, my dear, good old George arrived to-night, which is payment for everything, and he has not blown his head off to signify.[240] There are no marks visible by candle-light, though he looks ill from starving. I have been very poorly myself with a cold caught by the open windows, and what it appears is called swelled glands. I never knew anything but a horse had that complaint or something like it, and that then they were shot; and as far as humanity goes that is a good cure. I went stamping and screeching about one day like an owl with the pain. If I get better we are going to Woburn, George says; but if I continue poorly I shall leave him there, and go home on Sat.u.r.day. It is astonishing how kindly I feel towards Grosvenor Street. I am almost wishing to be settled there, for the first time in my life.

I am sorry to give up Sprotbro', but if we had gone there, we must have done Erswick first where the Copleys will be, and where there is a great charity bazaar meeting and a ball, and all sorts of County troubles, and George prefers Woburn.

I am sorry not to see Maria Copley; Anne and Mary are still here, and I quite agree to all you say of Anne. I am so fond of her, and so is Sister. Mary is very dull, but seems amiable. I cannot tell you whether Sarah is kind to them. You must see her to understand the state she is in; but she is not unkind to anybody, and never now finds fault with anybody she speaks of. She very seldom speaks at all, unless she is excited to defend some religious point.

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 Villiers._

NOCTON, _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 n.o.body 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 appet.i.te 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 pa.s.sed 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 Villiers._

NOCTON, _December 1826_.

DEAREST THERESA, There is a shameful subst.i.tution 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d knows it was the falsest cheerfulness ever was acted.

Since Sat.u.r.day 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 n.o.body 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 surpa.s.ses anything I have ever felt. Yours

E.E.

CHAPTER V

1827-1828

_Lady Campbell to Miss Eden._