Records of Later Life Part 54

I drove this morning, because you told me to do so, through the piece of ground they call the park here. It is extremely pretty, and I never grow weary of admiring the orderly love of beauty of our people.

I have had another long visit from Mr. C---- this morning.... Certainly novelists invent nothing more improbable than life.

I had an explanation with Charles Mason yesterday afternoon, and he did not appear at all annoyed at my intention of discontinuing our present arrangement. I shall give up to him the entire receipts for one night, as else I am afraid he will hardly do more than cover his expenses.

Then--the money that worthy man at Liverpool _borrowed_ from me, which I shall a.s.suredly never see again, and my travelling and living expenses deducted--my clear gains for this fortnight will be 68. It is not much, but all that much better than nothing. I shall be in town next week, and had intended, at the end of it, to go down to Bannisters; but Emily writes me that they cannot have me then, so I shall probably go to Plymouth, where they want me to act, and after that return to town again, and organize some more country engagements for myself; for I can't afford to be doing nothing. I go to town to-morrow morning, and shall be glad to be _at home_ again. I am writing with a vile iron pen, that has neither mind, soul, nor body.

G.o.d bless you, dear. Good-bye.

Ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

ROYAL HOTEL, PLYMOUTH, June 16th.

MY DEAR HAL,

Do not again put that sponge, saturated with that _stuff_, in your letters. The whiff of it I got accidentally in one I received some days ago was very pleasant, but the quant.i.ty you send me to-day is too much, and has given me a headache, and made me sick. Such virtue is there in proportion! Such immense difference in only _more_ or _less_!

You bid me _lump_ my answers to you, but I hate to do that. I cannot bear to defraud you in quant.i.ty, though inevitable necessity condemns me to the disparity of quality in our communications; but to give you poor measure in both seems to me too bad....

I shall act here on Friday, and leave for Exeter on Sat.u.r.day, and I shall act there one or two nights, but I do not yet know precisely how often. I expect to be in London by the end of next week, and to remain there for a week, after which I shall probably go for some nights to Southampton, so that, in a sort of way, I shall see Emily, and she will see me; further than this I have not at present decided. I have yet to visit the Midland Counties, where I have had engagements offered me, and York, Sheffield, and Leeds; after which I shall probably go on to Scotland. But all this is at present without fixed date.

Some time in the summer, I have promised to visit the C----s (Roman acquaintances of ours) at Brighton; and I shall stay some time in Scotland at a place called Carolside, with that very nice Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, with whom I am fast growing into a fast friendship. We shall be a strange company of widows at her house--herself, T---- M----, poor Emily de Viry, and poorer myself.

These are my floating plans for the summer. Of course you will hear into what specific arrangements they consolidate themselves by degrees.

_All_ the theatres where I act--indeed, as far as I can see, all the theatres throughout the country--are Theatres Royal; and with very good reason, for they are certainly all equally patronized by royalty.

I forgot to tell you that before leaving London, I carried your bag, _i.e._ my worsted-work, to your nephew's lodging, beseeching him, in a civil note, to take charge of it for you. I have received a civil note from him in reply, professing his readiness to do so, but adding that he will not be in Dublin till the dissolution of Parliament, which will not take place till the middle of July; in reply to which, I wrote him another civil note, telling him I would apprise you of this, and then you could either leave the bag in his custody, till he went to Ardgillan, or inform him of any method by which you might choose to have it forwarded to you more immediately.

I am not satisfied with the way in which it is made up; my own work was thick and clumsy enough, and I think they have finished the bag with a view to matching, rather than counteracting, these defects in the original composition. However, its value to you I know will be none the less for this; though, as I also know you are very _particular_, I wish it had been more neatly and lightly finished. I have put the strip of worsted-work you wished preserved inside the bag, and would humbly advise you to cut it up for kettle-holders, for which purpose it appears to me infinitely better adapted than for the housewife you proposed to make of it. However, you know I am shy about giving advice, so never mind what I say....

The weather is cold, rainy, windy, in short, odiously tempestuous; in spite of which I went into the sea yesterday, and shall do so every day while I am here; the freshness of the salt water is delicious.

Now, at this present moment, when I was about to close this letter, comes another from you, and I shall lump that in this answer; for 'tis absurd merely to wait till to-morrow that I may take up another sheet of paper to write to you upon, when in all human probability I shall have nothing new whatever to tell you.

I find that Charles Mason has made arrangements for me with the Exeter manager, and that I shall act there four nights, and therefore be there all next week, and only return to London next Sat.u.r.day week. This was in contemplation when I came here, but had not been determined on until to-day.

I have had a very affectionate letter from Lady Dacre, asking me to go down to the Hoo and stay some time with them, which I will do between some of my coming engagements.... No, my dear Harriet, you cannot imagine, and I cannot say, how I shrink from demonstrating a great deal of the affection that I feel; there are no words or sign adequate to it that I should not be reluctant to use, and I think this is at variance with the unhesitating and vehement expression of thought and opinion, and mere impression that is natural to me: but we are all more or less compounded of contradictions, and I _more_ than _less_.

At the Exeter Station, coming down to this place, an obliging omnibus or coach driver offered to carry me to Torquay if I was bound thither.

Wouldn't it have been nice if I had said _Yes_, and you and Dorothy had still been there? but you weren't, so I said _No_.... Both the Grevilles are friends of ours. Henry has been very intimate with Adelaide for a long time. He has a great many good qualities, and, though essentially a society man, has a good deal of principle; he is not very clever, but bright and pleasant, and very amiable and charming. His brother Charles has better brains, and is altogether a cleverer person. He is a man of the world, and more selfishly worldly, I think, than Henry, whose standard of right is considerably the higher of the two; indeed, Charles Greville's _right_ always appears to me a mere synonym for _expedient_, and when I tell him so, he invariably says "they are the same thing,"

which I do not believe. He is, unfortunately, deaf, but excellent company in spite of that. I met him the day before I left London, at dinner at Lady Ess.e.x's, and he told me he and Lord de Maulay were going to start next week on a riding tour through England, beginning with Devonshire. I think it very probable that I shall see him in Exeter next week, as he is to be at the Duke of Bedford's in that neighborhood. He talked eloquently of the beauty of the scenery they were going through, and very seriously urged me to join their party, and ride over England with them, saying it would be a delightfully pleasant expedition--of which I have no doubt, or of the entire propriety of my joining it, and "cavalcading" through Great Britain in his and Lord de Maulay's company.

Now I'll tell you what I've done to-day--my holiday. In the first place it poured with rain all the morning, so I sent for a pair of battledores and a shuttlec.o.c.k, and when Charles Mason came to render up last night's account, I made him come into a beautiful large ball-room I had discovered in this house, and took a good breathing; and he, being like Hamlet, "fat and scant of breath," took it hard.

NEW LONDON INN, EXETER, Monday, June 21st.

DEAR HAL,

Thanks for the purse, which I received this morning. I think you must imagine these country managers pay me as the monks did Correggio, in copper; perhaps, too, you have visions of me carrying my pay home on my back, as he did. (I forget whether that sad story is among the traditions exploded by modern _truth_.)

You have not received my last letter from Plymouth, or you would not have sent me again this tremendous "smell." I beseech you, dear Hal, not to saturate your paper any more with Neroli, or whatever you call it; it gives me a headache, and turns me sick.

My present address is as above, and I shall remain here until Sat.u.r.day morning, when I return to town.

I only like the leather purse because you have given it to me, and though that makes me _love_ it, it does not make me _like_ it--my preference is for the pretty, colored, delicately woven purses, through whose meshes the gold and silver smiles and glances, that you see me use, or abuse, as you think, and as their use is to be worn out, I am not much afflicted at their dropping into holes, and in due process of time fulfilling their destiny.

This inn is in the middle of the town, and an old, dingy, dull house; and I have an old, dingy, dark sitting-room, and the only trees I see are two fine _felled_ elm trunks, which I have been industriously sketching.

The cathedral here is a grand old church, and I went yesterday afternoon to service there; but the choir was full, so I sat on a sort of pauper's wooden bench, just outside the choir, and under the beautiful porch that forms the entrance to it; and heard the chanting, but nothing else. I had Hayes with me, and she earnestly entreated me to sit with my feet upon hers, to protect myself from the cold stone pavement; was not that touching and nice of her? I am sure I ought to be grateful for such a comfort as she is to me. Poor thing! she has been in great trouble about her mother. When she was in Ireland she took a small sum of about ten pounds, which belonged to her mother, and placed it in the hands of an aunt of hers, in whom she had implicit trust, wishing to withdraw the money from the possible risk of its being got from her mother by her brother, who lives with her,--he being selfish and unprincipled and likely to take it, and her mother affectionate and self-denying and likely to give it to him. And now poor Hayes gets word from her mother that her aunt says she can neither give her money nor money's worth, owing to the badness of the times; which of course troubles my poor maid very much, for she says her aunt is a woman of substance. However, she does not seem to think the money will ultimately be lost to her mother, but only inconveniently withheld for a time.

At Plymouth, I had a very kind and pressing invitation from Lady Elizabeth Bulteel--Lord Grey's daughter, whom I have known for some time--to go and stay at her pretty place, Flete, two miles from Plymouth; but having to come on here, I could not go to her, which I was very sorry for. She sent me the most exquisite flowers, which I brought away with me, and which are still consoling me here.

Good-bye; G.o.d bless you, my dear.

Ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

NEW LONDON INN, EXETER, Wednesday, June 23d.

I do not plead guilty to general inconsistency, but only to particular inconsistency, in a particular instance, dear Hal.... You are quite welcome to accuse me of it, however; but as in your last letter you imply that I accept the accusation, I beg leave to state distinctly that I do not.... Not, indeed, that I make any pretensions to that order of coherency of action and opinion which is generally called consistency: my principles are few, simple, and comprehensive, and I rather desire so to embrace them with my heart, mind, and soul, that my conduct may habitually conform to them, than am careful in every instance of action to see whether I am observing them. Somebody said very well that principles were moral habits; and our habits become unconscious and spontaneous: and so I think should our consistency be, and not a sort of moral rule or measure to be applied and adjusted to each exigency as it occurs, to produce a symmetrical moral appearance.

I think one reason why I appear, and perhaps am, inconsistent is because I seldom have any consideration for _expediency_--what I should call _secondary_ rules of conduct; and I have not much objection to contradicting my course of action in the present hour by that of the next, provided at each time I am endeavoring to do what seems best to me. I desire a certain _frame of mind_ that my conduct may flow habitually from it, without constant reference to outward coherency. In the course of life-long endeavor and practice, I suppose, this may be achieved. But do not think me presumptuous if I say that I think people are generally too afraid of appearing inconsistent, too desirous to seem reasonable,--in short, more anxious upon the whole about what they _do_ than what they _are_. Of course, the one will much depend upon the other; but they will _match_ well enough without an everlasting comparison of shades of color, if they are really in harmony, and, at all events, will certainly _harmonize_ even if they do not precisely _match_: there's a woman's shopping ill.u.s.tration for you.... Of course you will understand well enough that I have not referred to the capital inconsistency of which poor St. Paul so pathetically complained--wishing to do right and doing wrong,--nor would you have charged me individually and specially with this, alas! universal moral incoherency.

This is my holiday, and I have been spending it between two famous nursery-gardens in the neighborhood of Exeter, and the cathedral.

These great gardeners send up their exquisite and precious plants to the London horticultural exhibitions, and I saw many for whose beauty and variety gold and silver medals had been awarded to their foster-father florists. The masters of both these establishments very courteously went over them with me, showing me the hot-houses where their choicest and rarest plants were kept; there were some, such exquisite and wonderful creatures, lovely to the eye, delicious to the smell--Patagonians, Javanese, from the Cordilleras, from Peru, from Chili, from Borneo,--the flower tribes of the whole earth.

Then, again, they showed me little pots of fine sand, covered with bell gla.s.ses, where the eye could hardly detect a point or shade of sickly green upon the surface,--the promise of some _unique_ foreign flower, sent from its savage home in the forests of another hemisphere, to blossom at the Chiswick horticultural exhibition, and win medals for the careful cultivators, who have watched with faith--a.s.suredly in this case "the evidence of things not seen"--its precarious growth and doubtful development.

One of these gentlemen horticulturists interested me extremely by his own fervent enthusiasm about his plants. He showed me two perishing-looking miserable dried-up _twigs_, and said, "Those are the only specimens of their kind in the kingdom. They come from Chili, and when healthy bear a splendid blossom as large as a tulip. These are just between life and death: I fear we may kill them with kindness, we are so anxious about them." He told me they had a flower-hunter out in South America, and another in India. And now I must go to bed, because it is twelve o'clock.

I brought home some heavenly flowers from these earthly paradises, and then went and spent the rest of my afternoon in the cathedral--a beautiful old building, of various dates and architecture, the whole effect of which is extremely picturesque and striking.

Good-night, my dear.

I am ever yours, f.a.n.n.y.

ORCHARD STREET, Tuesday, August 24th.

Rachel has been acting at Manchester, to houses of _sixty_ pounds (her nightly salary being _one hundred and twenty_), and this because Jenny Lind is going there. I must confess I have no patience with this--as if the rich Manchester merchants could not afford to treat themselves to both! Rachel is really pre-eminent in her art, and so this provokes me.... I dined with the Miss Berrys at Richmond on Wednesday, and met dear old Lady Charlotte Lindsay, who inquired as usual most affectionately after you. Mrs. Dawson Damer dined there, too, and said she remembered being as a very young girl at Wroxton Abbey (Lord Guildford's), and seeing you there a very young girl too.

I began this letter two days ago, and am in all the full wretchedness of packing up. I set off to-morrow for Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l's, where I hope to be on Thursday afternoon. I shall reach York to-morrow, at three o'clock, and intend sleeping there, of which I have written to apprise Dorothy, as I hope to see her for an hour or two in the evening.

I am obliged to give up my Norwich engagement, which I am very sorry for; but the fast and loose style of the correspondence about it makes it impossible to fix any time for going there. The manager first asked me to go there in August, but now, because Jenny Lind is going there, he wants to put me off till the third week in September, at which time I expect to be in Glasgow, the manager of that theatre having written to me thence that October is not a good month there, and begged me to come in September. I am sorry to lose my Norwich engagement, but cannot help it. I have heard nothing more from the Princess's Theatre.

... My father talks of giving up his readings, and I have therefore spoken to Mitch.e.l.l, of the St. James's Theatre, about giving some myself, and find him very willing to undertake the whole "speculation"

and business, not only in London but all over the provinces, with me and for me; so that I do not feel quite as uncomfortable about the uncertainty of an engagement at the Princess's as I might have done.

Mr. Mitch.e.l.l is a Liberal, and an honest man, too, and I shall be quite safe in his hands; in the mean time I shall be very glad to be at Carolside instead of in London, though to-day and yesterday the weather has been very cold and chilly, and in Scotland is not likely to be warmer.

Do you hear of this horrid murder in Paris [that of the d.u.c.h.esse de Praslin, by her husband]? Ever so many people that I know here knew the unhappy woman and her still more wretched husband; and the woman who has been accused of having instigated the crime was little Lady Melgund's governess for six years.