In March the news that my dear (Mary) Lea was going to marry our man-servant John Gidman was an awful shock to me. My mother might easily have prevented this (most unequal) marriage, which, as far as Mrs. Leycester was concerned, was an elopement. It was productive of great trouble to us afterwards, and obliged me to endure John Gidman, to wear him like a hair-shirt, for forty years. Certainly no ascetic torments can be so severe as those which Providence occasionally ordains for us. As for our dear Lea herself, her marriage brought her misery enough, but her troubles always stayed in her heart and never filtered through. As I once read in an American novel, "There ain't so much difference in the troubles on this earth, as there is in the folks that have to bear them."
To MY MOTHER.
"March 20.—O my very dearest Mamma. What news! what news! I cannot believe it! and yet sometimes I have thought it might happen, for one night a long time ago when I was sitting on Lea's lap—O what shall I call her now? may I still call her Lea? Well, one night a long time ago, I said that Lea would never marry, and she asked why she shouldn't, and said something about—'Suppose I marry John.' … I was sure she could never leave us. I put your letter away for some time till Mrs. Kilvert sent me upstairs for my gloves. Then I opened it, and the first words I saw were 'Lea—married.' I was so surprised I could not speak or move. … How very odd it will be for Lea to be a bride. Why, John is not half so old as Lea, is he? … Tell me all about the wedding—every smallest weeest thing—What news! what news!"
MARY (LEA) GIDMAN to A. J. C. H.
"Stoke, March 29, 1846.—My darling child, a thousand thanks for your dear little letter. I hope the step I have taken will not displease you. If there is anything in it you don't like, I must humbly beg your pardon. I will give you what account I can of the wedding. Your dear Mamma has told you that she took me to Goldstone. Then on Saturday morning a little after nine my mother's carriage and a saddle-horse were brought to the gate to take us to Cheswardine. My sister Hannah and her husband and George Bentley went with me to church. I wished you had been with me so very much, but I think it was better that your dear Mamma was not there, for very likely it would have given her a bad headache and have made me more nervous than I was, but I got through all of it better than I expected I should. As soon as it was over the bells began to ring. We came back to Goldstone, stayed about ten minutes, then went to Drayton, took the coach for Whitmore, went by rail to Chelford, and then we got a one-horse fly which took us to Thornycroft to John's grandfather's, where we were received with much joy. We stayed there till Wednesday, then went for one night to Macclesfield, and came back to Goldstone on Thursday and stayed there till Friday evening. Then we came back to Stoke. The servants received us very joyfully, and your dear Mamma showed me such tender feelings and kindness, it is more than I can tell you now. My dear child, I hope you will always call me Lea. I cannot bear the thought of your changing my name, for the love I have for you nothing can ever change. My mother and Hannah wish you had been in the garden with me gathering their flowers, there is such a quantity of them. … We leave Stoke to-morrow, and on Friday reach your and our dear Lime. I shall write to you as soon as we get back, and now goodbye, my darling child, from your old affectionate nurse Lea."
The great age of my dear Grandfather Leycester, ninety-five, had always made his life seem to us to hang upon a thread, and very soon after I returned home for my summer holidays, we were summoned to Stoke by the news of his death. This was a great grief to me, not only because I was truly attached to the kind old man, but because it involved the parting with the happiest scenes of my childhood, the only home in which I had ever been really happy. The dear Grandfather's funeral was very different from that which I had attended last year, and I shed many tears by his grave in the churchyard looking out upon the willows and the shining Terne. Afterwards came many sad partings, last visits to Hawkestone, Buntingsdale, Goldstone; last rambles to Helshore, Jackson's Pool, and the Islands; and then we all came away—my Uncle Penrhyn first, then Aunt Kitty, then my mother and Lea and I, and lastly Grannie, who drove in her own carriage all the way to her house in New Street, Spring Gardens, the posting journey, so often talked of, actually taking place at last. Henceforward Stoke seemed to be transferred to New Street, which was filled with relics of the old Shropshire Rectory, and where Mrs. Cowbourne, Margaret Beeston, Anne Tudor, and Richard the footman, with Rose the little red and white spaniel, were household inmates as before.
I thought the house in New Street charming—the cool, old-fashioned, bow-windowed rooms, which we should now think very scantily furnished, and like those of many a country inn; the dining-room opening upon wide leads, which Grannie soon turned into a garden; the drawing-room, which had a view through the trees of the Admiralty Garden to the Tilting Yard, with the Horse Guards and the towers of Westminster Abbey.
The grief of leaving Stoke made me miserably unwell, and a doctor was sent for as soon as I arrived at the Stanleys' house, 38 Lower Brook Street, who came to me straight from a patient ill with the scarlatina, and gave me the disorder. For three weeks I was very seriously ill in hot summer weather, in stifling rooms, looking on the little black garden and chimney-pots at the back of the house. Mary and Kate Stanley were sent away from the infection, and no one came near me except my faithful friend Miss Clinton, who brought me eau-de-Cologne and flowers. It was long foolishly concealed from me that I had the scarlatina, and therefore, as I felt day after day of the precious holidays ebbing away, while I was pining for coolness and fresh country air, my mental fever added much to my bodily ailments, whereas, when once told that I was seriously ill, I was quite contented to lie still. Before I quite recovered, my dear nurse Lea became worn-out with attending to me, and we had scarcely reached Lime before she became most dangerously ill with a brain-fever. For many days and nights she lay on the brink of the grave, and great was my agony while this precious life was in danger. Aunt Esther, who on great occasions generally behaved kindly, was very good at this time, ceased to persecute me, and took a very active part in the nursing.
At length our dear Lea was better, and as I was still very fragile, I went with my mother and Anne Brooke, our cook, to Eastbourne—then a single row of little old-fashioned houses by the sea—where we inhabited, I should think, the very smallest and humblest lodging that ever was seen. I have often been reminded of it since in reading the account of Peggotty's cottage in "David Copperfield." It was a tiny house built of flints, amongst the boats, at the then primitive end of Eastbourne, towards the marshes, and its miniature rooms were filled with Indian curiosities, brought to the poor widow to whom it belonged by a sailor son. The Misses Thomas of Wratton came to see us here, and could hardly suppress their astonishment at finding us in such a place—and when the three tall smart ladies had once got into our room, no one was able to move, and all had to go out in the order in which they were nearest the door. But my mother always enjoyed exceedingly these primitive places, and would sit for hours on the beach with her Taylor's "Holy Living" or her "Christian Year," and had soon made many friends amongst the neighbouring cottagers, whose houses were quite as fine as her own, and who were certainly more cordial to the lady who had not minded settling down as one of themselves, than they would have been to a smart visitor in a carriage. The most remarkable of these people was an excellent old woman called Deborah Pattenden, who lived in the half of a boat turned upside down, and had had the most extraordinary adventures. My first literary work was her biography, which told how she had suffered the pains of drowning, burning (having been enveloped in flames while struck by lightning), and how she had lain for twenty-one days in a rigid trance (from "the plague," she described it) without food or sign of life, and was near being buried alive. We found a transition from our cottage life in frequent visits to Compton Place, where Mrs. Cavendish, mother of the 7th Duke of Devonshire, lived then, with her son Mr. Cavendish, afterwards Lord Richard. She was a charming old lady, who always wore white, and had very simple and very timid manners. But she was fond of my mother, who was quite adored by Lord Richard, by whom