Miss Eden's Letters Part 4

Miss Wynn[68] I like very much, probably because I expected to dislike her. The rest of the family are perfectly inoffensive, with nothing particularly agreeable or disagreeable in them, except indeed I have the pleasure of beating Mr. Wynn at chess every evening, till the tears almost course one another down his innocent cheeks, but I go on beating him for all that.

Lady Grantham is much better than she was during the journey; we go out every day in the pony-cart together, and call on the farmers and cottagers. I do not understand one word in ten the people say, and should be glad to take a Yorkshire master if I could find one. I hope, for your sake, Gog Magog[69] is not as green as this place is, else you will be more angry than ever with the dusty trees and brown gra.s.s of Eastcombe. The gra.s.s was quite dazzling when I first came here, and the green is a bad colour for the eyes, after the nice quiet brown we have been accustomed to, but green peas agree remarkably well with me, and sometimes I give a little pa.s.sing thought to you, when I am packing up a great forkfull of them, and again when the children bring me in immense nosegays of mignonette, sweet peas, jessamine, which are to be put out at night because they smell so very sweet.

Lady Grantham's garden is beautiful, and full of every sort of flower, but then it is generally locked. The house is excessively comfortable, with a stove in every pa.s.sage, and a fire in every room, servants' and all, an excellent library, and a very pretty statue gallery, heaps of amusing books, and an arm-chair for every limb. I foresee a great probability of my being very happy here, as my love of Lady Grantham does not diminish by any means, and he and I are great friends, and he likes to be played to for hours together. Your most affec.

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to her Brother, Lord Auckland._

NEWBY, _Monday_ [1818].

MY DEAREST GEORGE, Having in our former letters nearly settled all our business matters, I may venture this time to indulge you with a few lighter topics.... This house is what Bob would call _chuck full_, but I do not think you know any of the company except the Markhams[70] and Mrs. Graham. I think all the Markhams pleasant in their way. Anne is rather an odd fellow, but very amusing, and Frederica is very pleasant.

Cecilia desires me to give you her kind remembrance. As for your friend Mr. Graham,[71] though I would not wish to be severe, yet I cannot think a man who wears a light sort of mulberry-coloured "don't mentions," from a wish to look _waspish_, can be any great shakes. The rest of his character may be very good perhaps, but I can hardly think so under these circ.u.mstances.

Your Bess has been making sad work of it indeed, and I wish she had not been promised to Sister, for the Granthams are enquiring everywhere for a dog of that description, and I think Bess would find this place pleasanter than Eastcombe. Your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire._

NEWBY HALL [1818].

MY DEAREST SISTER, Your pride must be getting up again, I should imagine, and I must give it a little epistolary pat on the back (what a remarkably odd clever expression) to keep it all smooth.

My illness was remarkably opportune, inasmuch as it began at Studley,[72] and which was so uncommonly dull, that the impossibility of dining down was an immense advantage that I had over the rest of society. We were nineteen at dinner every day. We were all immensely formal in the evening.

The house is but a bad one in the old-fashioned way, and my room was peculiarly liable to murder and that sort of accident, a large dark green bed with black feathers on the top, stuck in a deep alcove, and on one side of it an enormous dark closet, quite full of banditti I fancy, and all the rest of the room actually swarming with ghosts I know, only I was much too sleepy to lay awake and look at them.

Mrs. Lawrence has an unhappy turn for music without any very remarkable genius, and we played 150 pages of the dryest Duetts in the Dussek and Pleyel style without even changing our time, or rising into a forte, or sinking into a piano, and minding every Repeat and Da Capo in the book.

On Wednesday Lord Grantham and Mr. Graham went on some Yeomanry business to Leeds, on Thursday we came home to my great joy. Adieu, my dearest sister; this has been written in a confusion of tongues, and I cannot make it any longer by any means. Ever your most affec.

E. EDEN.

_P.S._--I have got a beautiful black cloth gown for two guineas, so fine you never saw the like.

_Emily Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire._

NEWBY HALL, _November_ [1818].

MY DEAREST SISTER, We are now quite alone for the first time since I came--that is, the Wynns are here still, but they are part of being alone, and we have never before been so few, and I must say that it is uncommonly pleasant after so much company. The mere comfort of being able to go about the house with _rough_ hair, or a _tumbled_ frill, and in an old black gown, is not to be despised, and there is some pleasure in taking up a book in the evening and yawning over it, and then saying anything that comes uppermost, without thinking. We are very busy, dressing little dolls for Lord Grantham's Theatre, which is one of the most ingenious pieces of mechanism I ever saw, and one of the prettiest things altogether. There is to be a grand representation to-night, and we have been rehearsing all the last week. It takes nine people to manage the scenery, figures, and music, and we all of us lose our tempers at it regularly every morning. I act the orchestra, and whilst I am playing away to the best of my power the music belonging to any particular scene, Anne[73] and Lady Grantham, who manage the figures, get into some hobble, and the music is finished before the action to which it belongs is begun, so that Harlequin and Columbine have to dance out without any time to a.s.sist them. I believe nothing in the world could ruffle Lord Grantham's temper; but these theatrical difficulties go nearer to it than anything else, and while he is explaining to Lady Grantham that the figures will move if she takes pains, and to me that the music is quite long enough if I will but play slower, it may be rather provoking that Freddy[74] should let down the wrong trap-door, Anne set her sleeves on fire in one of the lamps, Mary[75] turn the cascade the wrong way, so that the water runs up instead of down; Thomas the footman should let down a light blue sky to a dark moonlight scene, and Shaw should forget the back scene altogether, so that his coat and b.u.t.tons and white waistcoat are figuring away in the distance of the Fire King's Palace. However, patience and scolding have overcome these little difficulties, and our last rehearsal was perfect.

Lady Melville[76] and her children were here for five days last week. I do not know exactly what I thought of her. She is too clever not to be rather pleasant, and too argumentative not to be very tiresome, and altogether I do not think I liked her. But her visit took place very soon after I had heard of poor Sir S. Romilly,[77] and I was too much shocked and too unhappy really to like anybody, particularly a person who insisted upon discussing the whole thing constantly, and in a _political_ way. I think I have never been more shocked by anything that was not a private calamity--I mean, that did not concern one's family or one's self--than I was by this, and poor Captain Feilding[78] who was here, and who was a private friend of his, was so completely overcome that I was very sorry for him too. Altogether it is a horrible history, and only shows how very little we can know what is good for man in this life, when we were all saying some months ago that this would be the proudest year of Sir S. Romilly's life. Your most affectionate

E. E.

_Lord Auckland to Miss Eden._

BRUTON STREET, _Monday, November 1818_.

MY DEAR EMILY, I have this moment seen an agent of Mrs. Wildman, a rich Kentish widow, and she has agreed to take Eden Farm on my own terms, which gives us a prospect of being a little more settled and comfortable.

She is to have it for seven years and pay 600 a year. And now I must look out for a house in town, which you will find pretty near ready for you when you arrive. I am in a great bustle and hurry, for we are all alive with this election, though with the melancholy impression of poor Romilly's death it is difficult to rouse people. Hobhouse[79] has behaved so ill that it is right to try to beat him, but I fear that Lamb[80] is too late. He will certainly be low on the poll for the first week, but it is possible that afterwards he may recover. In the meantime, people are very busy, and none of our friends are sanguine.

Your affectionate brother,

AD.

_Lord Auckland to Miss Eden._

[_November_] 1818.

MY DEAR EMILY, Lamb carried his election to-day by 604, and made a sort of a speech saying that now he was their member, and they were his const.i.tuents, and that they would soon learn to be friends. He was a little hooted, but not much more than usual; but all our foolish friends appeared to cheer him with c.o.c.kades in their hats, and all was uproar and riot and confusion and pelting and brickbats and mud, and it is lucky none of them were very seriously hurt. They all arrived covered with dirt to the west end of the town, and the mob at their heels, for they were too gallant not to stop to be occasionally pelted.

I never saw such a scene. Your friend Graham[81] looked as if he had just come out from the pillory; Sefton, Morton, and twenty others in the same plight.

Report says that one servant is nearly killed; I hope it is not true.

Ferguson had a blow on his head, and Mr. Charlton another more serious one; but I hear of nothing worse. It makes but an ugly triumph for our great _victory_. What a glorious debate was yesterday's!

You will live at No. 30 Lower Grosvenor Street, the only house I can get, small but convenient, and I think we shall make it do well enough.

Ever affectionately yours,

AD.

_Miss Eden to Lady Buckinghamshire._

NEWBY HALL [1818].

MY DEAREST SISTER, ...Mr. Ellis left this place yesterday, so I could not give him your message. I think he enjoyed the latter part of his visit here very much, as there was a very pleasant set of gentlemen, and Mr. Douglas, who is more amusing than ever. We had besides them, two Mr.

Lascelles's,[82] one "a cunning hunter" and the other very gentlemanlike and pleasant; Mr. Duncombe, a _pretty_ little London Dandy, rather clever in his way; Captain Cust,[83] a soldierly sort of person, and a kind of _Lusus Naturae_ (is that sense do you think?), because he is pleasant and well-looking though he is a Cust, and Mr. Petre, very rich and very stupid, so that we had a very proper mixture of character....

We are all hunting mad in these parts, and I am afraid that when I come to Eastcombe I shall be a great expense to you with my hunters and grooms. I have already made great progress in the language of the art.

I have heard a new name for the Miss Custs, in case you are tired of the Dusty Camels; by uniting their names of Brownlow and Cust, they become Brown Locusts, which is a very expressive t.i.tle I think. I remain, ever yr. very affec. sister,

E. EDEN.

CHAPTER II

1819-1820