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 Pam210 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
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 Saturday and stay in town ten days. I shall be very glad to see you again. Pray come as soon as you can – Saturday 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 crêper! 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
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 butter, are brought to us in an hourly succession of freshness. All the material of the kitchen excellent, and the appetite too pure to think that it is a female that cooks it. Then a few glasses of hock and some coffee, and an hour’s repose, and we meet at Lady C. Greville’s,215 Alvanley216 and his sisters, and the F. Levesons.217 We assort 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 amusements. 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 Duchess 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 unobserved. 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 nobody 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. Nobody 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 coarse 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 Fanny 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