Miss Eden's Letters Part 28

Write to me; it cheers me, and I want cheering often, dear Emmy. I grieve at your account of Lady Lansdowne.[400] She has not the const.i.tution for the illness of being cured by the London physicians, I am very sure. Solomon, after he had taken all the physic in the world, exclaimed: "Vanity of vanities."

Your G.o.dchild has a mouthful of teeth. Tell me something of your Sisters, of William Osborne, of that marriage of your niece, and particularly of the fate of those _orchises_ we took down that day we ran to Greenwich, did they ever come up?

_Miss Eden to Lady Campbell_.

GROSVENOR STREET.

[1837.]

...I do not really care about my position in this short life, but I like to be actually _posished_, don't you? I believe we shall end by remaining at Greenwich, influenced chiefly by the enormous price of villas.

I am sorry Lady Lansdowne writes in bad spirits, for barring the melancholy circ.u.mstances attending Kerry's marriage, I should not have thought this a troublesome year to her. The Wilt himself seems full of attention to her, and if she hates London society, this is a charming year, as such an article does not exist. You have no idea how odd it is.

Except herself, no person ever thinks of giving either ball or party. I own I think it quite delightful; no hot rooms, no trouble of any sort, and a great economy of gowns and bores.

We thought much of the Unions[401] for ten days, but they are going by.

There never was such luck as the Tailors starting by such ridiculous demands. The middle cla.s.ses, even down to servants, took against them, and there seems to be very little doubt that, in a very few weeks, they will be totally beat and the whole Union fund exhausted.

It is rather amusing to see them wandering about the Parks, quite astonished at the green leaves and blackbirds. There were about fifty of them playing at leap-frog the other morning. Only conceive the luxury of going home after that unusual exercise, and after beating their wives for making such good waistcoats, sitting down cross-legged to rest themselves. They cost the Union 10,000 the first week, and 8,000 the second, and as the whole amount of the Union fund is 60,000, it is easy to guess how long it may last. It will end in frightful distress. The great tailors are getting foreigners over, and employing women with great success.

I have been in a state of agitation with a touch of bother added to it, which would have made my letters very _hummocky_. That giving up Greenwich was nearly the death of me, and our glorious promotion[402]

was inflicted on us on a particular Thursday, Epsom race day, which George and I had set apart for a holiday, and a _tete-a-tete_ dinner, and a whole afternoon in that good little garden. We went all the same; but, as for gardening, what was the good of cultivating flowers for other people's nosegays! So there I sat under the verandah crying. What else could be done, with the roses all out, and the sweetpeas, and our orange-trees, and the whole garden looking perfectly lovely; and George was nearly as low as I was.

And then we had two or three days of bother for our future lives, because, though I now never mean to talk politics, and to hear as little of them as may be, yet I suppose there is no harm in imagining just the bare possibility that the Government _may_ not last for ever.[403]

However, he is a.s.sured now of a retiring pension. If he chooses to play at the game of politics, he must take his chance of winning or losing; and moreover, this would not have been a time for separating from poor Lansdowne, who has behaved beautifully all through these troubles. So now we are fairly in for it, and after the first troubles are over, I daresay it will do very well. It is the kind of office he likes, and he is, of course, flattered with the offer of it, and Lord Grey has been uncommonly kind to him.

We went on Tuesday to see the Admiralty, and I believe we shall be moving into it the end of next week. It is a vast undertaking. The kitchen is about the size of Grosvenor Square, and takes a cook and three kitchen-maids to keep it going, but the rest of the establishment is in proportion, which is distressing, as I look on every additional servant as an added calamity. I will trouble you with the idea of _this_ house--your old acquaintance--with a bill stuck in its window, "To be sold,"--rather shocking! Looks ungrateful after we have pa.s.sed our best days in it; but still I cannot fancy being much attached to _any_ London house, so I do not mind about this. Our idea is to get a villa sufficiently small to be adapted to our income, whenever the day of dignified retirement comes; to move our plants and books to it, and gradually to furnish it, and then to make it our only home for the rest of our lives. I should like that better than any other life. Ever your affectionate

E. E.

_Lady Campbell to Miss Eden_.

_Tuesday, June 10, 1834._

How do you do, and how do you feel? How does one feel when one becomes sister to the Admiralty?... Stanley[404] seems a terrible loss, but at this distance I cannot judge, of course. You will think me, of course, a Radical, but I think he is wrong, for the Irish Church always did strike me like a Hot-bed for raising Horse-Beans,--some would tell you for raising thistles, but I don't go quite so far. I saw Mrs. Ellice, she is in such a Grey fermentation, it might be dangerous, but she foams it away in such long talk that it is very safe.

I saw Mrs. Foggy[405] as she is called; pleasant, merry, and going on very well; people begin to get accustomed to her ways, and, I think, like her on the whole! Darling dear Foggy is in good humour, and all seems right. She is amusing, certainly, but certainly _elle parle gras_, as the French say, when people speak improprieties. I always think part of her education must have been carried on in the Ca.n.a.l boat, like _Vert Vert_, when he got away from the nuns.

The Protestants are bristling all over this unfortunate country since the Reform. I have seen nothing like the excitement among them. The Catholics do not appear so excited. This is plain enough. The loss to 200,000 is immense, whereas the gain to 8,000,000 is comparatively small.

_Miss Eden to Lady Campbell._ HAM COMMON, _Tuesday, July 23, 1834._

Yes, it is very odd--absolutely curious. But tho' you and I live in two different islands--two different worlds--yet your letters always are just what I think, and know, and say, and they fit into my mood of mind, and you carry on the story I am telling--and you know all I did not tell you, and say all I did not know--and the whole thing amalgamates. That Littleton creature![406] Is not there an unity in that story of him with all I know? Let's write his life. Did not I meet him at dinner the very week after the stramash, when everybody crossed the street if they saw him coming, they were so ashamed _for_ him? It was at a dinner at the Chancellor's, the first given after Lord Melbourne's appointment,[407]

and he was there, and Lord Lansdowne, and several others, and Charles Grey[408] as sulky as possible. And next to him sat Mr. Littleton--and the first thing he chose to begin talking about across the table was something about "one of the _tustles that O'Connell and I have had_." It set all our teeth on edge, everybody being naturally with a predisposition to _edge_-ism, and none of the ferment of the change having had time to subside--and he the guilty author of it all! I really would not have alluded for his sake to the letter O. I said to Lord Lansdowne: "Well, I am surprised at him, for I have refrained from talking about him, from really expecting his mind must give way, and that there will be some horrid tragedy to make us all repent having abused him." And he said, "That is exactly my feeling. I look at him with astonishment; I can hardly believe he is what he seems to be." I suppose it really was true, and that he did not mind. We tried, for two or three days, I remember, to declare he looked very ill, but now you say he had not lost a night's rest, I give up that point. It never was very tenable.

The young Greys have all been pre-eminently absurd, Lord Howick more than all the rest. He told me he had been to all the clubs, and calling at all the houses he knew, to spread every report against the Chancellor he could think of, and coming from him, of course, it was set down as coming from his father, who is as unlike his sons as he well can be. I do not wish to entrench on Mrs. E.'s[409] province--how tiresome she must be!--but she can say nothing of Lord Grey I don't think. He is the only great man I ever had the good luck to see--consistent and magnanimous--two qualities that I never met with in any other politician. I have closed my political accounts with him.... I am sure I cannot tell you generally anything about the Government. Politics have answered so ill to me in my private capacity that I gave them quite up, and can only tell you these private gossipries of the time. I have not read a debate since last Easter, and can only wonder how I could be so foolish three years ago as to think politics and office the least amusing. I suppose to the end of our days we shall all wonder at ourselves three years ago. But I have had such a horrid uncomfortable year this year; I never was so tired, so out of breath, so bored. You may well ask where we lodge. At a little cottage on Ham Common, hired by the week, without a sc.r.a.p of garden, but where by dint of hard labour, a doctor, and quant.i.ties of steel draughts, I have recovered a little of the health I lost entirely by being kept eight months in London, frying over the coals.

I declare I believe I have lived ten whole lives in the last ten months; we have been so unsettled, which is the only state I cannot abide. First George was to have that Exchequer place with Greenwich, and we made up our plans for that, and were to part with Grosvenor Street; then Greenwich was cut off from the Exchequer, and we prepared to give that up; then the Government found it convenient to make him keep the Board of Trade, and we went back to be as we were.

Then came the Stanley secession and we thought we were all to be out, and reverted to the Exchequer, and looked at every villa round London.

Then came the Admiralty, and George sent me to Greenwich to pack up and sell and give up everything, (the only spot of ground I care about in the world).

Well! That was done, and as the goods were on their road, just turning into the Admiralty gate, and just after we had paid Sir James Graham for _his_ goods, and stuck up a bill in Grosvenor St. "To Be Sold"--out went dear Grey.

Then for two or three weeks we did not know what to do. And then in all that hot weather, at last we settled to move, and the arrangement of that great Admiralty was enough to murder an elephant. Then, when George set off on his Tour of the Ports, we came here, and just as we got settled, a Mr. Brogden bought Grosvenor Street, so that I had to go up and pack that up, and rout out the acc.u.mulated rubbish of sixteen years, and move all the books, etc.

However they have done their worst now, we have parted with both our houses, and all our goods, and when we are turned out, must live in a tent under a hedge.

I have got a little black King Charles's spaniel of my own, that I mean to boil down, and make into a comfortable "sup of broth" when we come to that particular hedge "where my tired mind may rest and call it home."

I somehow feel as if I were sitting by watching George's mad career, and wondering where it will end.

I never set eyes on him--you have no idea what the labour of the Admiralty is--he never writes less than 35 letters every day in his own hand, besides what the Secretary and all the others do.

Every Levee is a crowd of discontented men who would make an excellent crew for _one_ ship, he says, but as they each want one, he is obliged to refuse 99 out of every 100. However he is as happy as a king, I believe, only he has not had time to mention it. He likes his office of all things.

The Admiralty is a splendid home to live in, but requires quant.i.ties of servants, and the more there are the more discontented they are.

Everybody says what fortunate people we are, and I daresay George is, but my personal luck consists in having entirely lost his society and Greenwich, the two charms of my life; in being kept ten months of every year in London, which I loathe; and in being told to have people to dinner--without the means of dressing myself so as to be always in society. I wish Government would consider that, tho' a man be raised high in office, yet that the unfortunate women remain just as poor as ever.

Louisa (Mrs. Colvile) has just had her seventeenth child; Mary (Mrs.

Drummond) her ninth; and Mrs. Eden is going to have her seventh.

Lord Melbourne[410] made a good start in the House of Lords as far as speaking went. I do not know what ladies have hopes of him, but the "Fornarina,"[411] as he calls her himself, has him in greater thraldom than ever. I see him very often and confidentially, but both of us without any sinister designs.

_Miss Eden to Lady Charlotte Greville._

HAM COMMON, _Friday [October 1834]._

MY DEAR LADY CHARLOTTE, I sent a note to thank you for my beautiful purse down to Mr. Spring-Rice to frank, not knowing he was away from home, and now that is come back to me I may thank you also for your account of Lady F.[412] I am so glad the business is over at last; it was very hard upon her to have it hanging over her so long, and I congratulate you on being at ease about her. As for another grandchild--your _grand quiver_ is so full of them already, that I suppose you hardly have room for any more. I think it would be such a good plan, if after people have as many children as they like, they were allowed to lie-in of any other article they fancied better; with the same pain and trouble, of course (if that is necessary), but the result to be more agreeable. A set of Walter Scott's novels, or some fine china, or in the case of poor people, fire-irons and a coal skuttle, or two pieces of Irish linen. It would certainly be more amusing and more profitable, and then there would be such anxiety to know _what_ was born. Now it can be only a boy or a girl.

I expect and hope that Lady F. in about ten days will be walking about looking younger and stronger than ever.

My purse is quite perfection, and I cannot thank you enough for it. I am only afraid it is still more attractive than the last you gave me, which so took the fancy of one of those men who sell oranges in the street, that he s.n.a.t.c.hed it off the seat of the carriage in which I was sitting and ran away with it. Your ever affectionate

E. EDEN.

_Lady Campbell to Miss Eden._

[1837.]

Tell me any old news you have by you, for I never see a newspaper by any chance, and live in the wilds,--woods I would have said, only we are scarce of trees. I hear news once a month from Mrs. Ellice. I think she seems Lord Wellesley's Madame de Pompadour, and so happy! She is quick and lively, but _furieus.e.m.e.nt intrigante_ I should imagine, from what I hear of her; and her vanity has such a maw that she swallows the rawest compliments. She was recommended to me by Mrs. Sullivan,--not merely introduced to my acquaintance, but fairly confided to my heart. Well, my dearest, I went with my friendship in my hand, ready to swear it before the first magistrate, expecting to find a warm-hearted _etourdie_ full of talent and genius. Well, we met, and I knocked my head against the hardest bit of worldly Board you ever met with. Full of business, with a great deal of the grey claw and _accaparage_. So I b.u.t.toned up my heart to my chin, and we talked good harsh worldly gab, and we are charming persons together.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._