Miss Eden's Letters. Eden Emily
subsiding, but I have fits of it occasionally and hate it very much. I had one yesterday, which even moved George’s strong heart to pity, though he has such a contempt for illness that I keep it all very snug. I am going to Langley to-day, and that is another thing which makes him so scrapey that I am writing in his room in order to talk him over in my most insinuating and winning manner between the sentences of my letter.
He and I go on such different tacks about town and country, that we make our plans, and talk them over for half-an-hour before I recollect that we are working for different aims. He thinks every day spent in the country by anybody who does not shoot is so much time wasted, and I happen to think every day spent in London is a mistake, and I was roused to the sense of our different views by his saying, “Well, but I want you to gain another day in London, and you can write to Louisa that you were not well yesterday, and then stay here, and I will go to the play with you to-night.” Such an iniquitous plot! And I am about as fit to go to the play as to go in a balloon.
George liked Middleton very much. Lady Jersey137 was going, as soon as the present party was all gone, to turn unhappy for the poor Duke of York,138 and as far as I can make out, she was going to show it by putting off all the ladies of the party she was to have had this week, and to keep up just enough to receive all the gentlemen. She and Lady Granville139 seem to have had a fine tracasserie at Paris. George is so charmed with Lady Jersey’s children. He says he never saw such a fine pleasant set of boys, and the girls are very pretty.
I have not been out of the house, except once, to see Elizabeth Cawdor,140 and with that wonderful quickness of observation that I possess I discovered that she will probably soon add to her family, and that the addition will be very considerable – three or four at least.
Lady Bath is at Rome again and not the least anxious to come home, which is odd. One of Elizabeth’s children is so pretty. I have no news to tell you, as it does not come of itself. One must go to look for it.
[In October 1820 Emily Eden suddenly received from her friend Pamela in Scotland the news of her engagement to a widower with one child – Sir Guy Campbell, and a month later the wedding had taken place. Pamela, in her characteristic way, wrote and announced the event.]
Before you read thro’ this letter call your maid, and get the smelling bottle, for you will certainly faint away with surprise and wonder. Who would have thought it! I don’t believe it myself so I cannot expect you to believe it, but I am going to be married perfectly true in about a month or six weeks.
I am going to be married to Sir Guy Campbell141… What I would have given to have had you with me all this time, and at this moment, I miss you beyond expression. He is uncommonly right-headed, of course it follows he is liberal, wide-minded and indulgent, at the same time I see he can take violent dislikes, as you do at times, my best one. He is very tact to a degree, and that you know, Dearest, is a corner-stone in happiness, for there is no fitting two minds without it.
[On her wedding-day, November 20, Pamela wrote to say the Catholic priest had married them at half-past twelve, and that she was to be married again by the Presbyterian minister, and a long dinner was to be given for them in the evening for all the Family to contemplate her. A week later she wrote again to Miss Eden.]
Just like you, and quite tactful not to cool our affection for each other by sending me a wet blanket in the shape of a congratulation. I like Sir Guy more and more, he understands me so well, he knows my faults, which is a great relief, for I have no silent obliquity to smother, or no good behaviour to act up to more than is comfortable. He is doing a set of sketches of the Highlands for you, which I am sure you will like. However, tho’ he is of a Highland family, let me take from your mind any impression that he is at all Scotch in obstinacy, cunning cheek-bones, or twang. He has not been in Scotland for the last six and twenty years. You need not tell dear Mrs. Colvile this, who has built all my hopes of future happiness on his being Scotch to the bone. Hers was the first letter I received with Lady Campbell on it…
I cannot say how pretty it was of you to send that pretty cap, which I think the prettiest cap that ever was prettied. Pat your Grantham for she did that commission well. So she was very brimful of London and the ways and means of the place? You wonder at her liking it so much after having had so much of it; but it grows upon them like a description I read somewhere of some part of the Infernal Regions, where the damned were condemned to misery and dirt, wallowing in mire and sand, but they were so degraded they had lost the sense of misery, and had no wish to leave the darkness for light.
I wear your dear cap often and often, and occasionally Sir Guy wears it when he is not very well. He says he is sure you will be gratified by the attention.
I have had a very neat silk pelisse trimmed with fur, sent without the donor’s name, and as the poor thing is a very pretty pelisse, but can’t tell me its business or where it comes from, I have a silent great-coat here, and thanks I can’t impart. I believe it comes from those Lady Hills, those bosom friends I never could bear, and if I have thanked the Gods amiss, I can’t help it.
Have you seen your Elliots?142 for I am anxious to know what India has done for them. It is a dangerous experiment, they get so stuffed with otto of roses, sandal-wood and sentiment, they never come quite right…
Aunty is in the grumps with the rheumatism, and the winds and draughts. You know the sort of silent-victim appearance of suffering innocence some people take and wear, which increases when the meat is tough, and the pudding burnt, and which is all more or less aimed at me, till I feel so culprit, as if I blew the winds, and made the cold, and toughed the meat, and burnt the dish. However, I don’t mind it now and go on doing my best for all of them, particularly as she desired not to be troubled with housekeeping, and as I recollect she always keeps a growl at the cold at home. Sir Guy behaves like an angel to her…
I hear they have a large party at Bowood, I suppose the usual routine. I heard of Truval at Longleat, not doing anything particular. That small Ealing address with all the little Truvals of the grove, babes and sucklings, amused me. He was bored at Longleat and deserves to be bored thro’ life. I can only wish him a continuance of H. Montagu’s friendship.
Many thanks, my darling Emmy, for your delightful letter. Till you are shut up for six months in an old rambling house on the coast of the Isle of Bute in January, you cannot know the value, the intrinsic sterling, of such a letter as yours… I am sorry poor Mary’s Charing-Cross purgatory has begun again.
I think, if God grants us life, we are very likely to settle, when we do settle, somewhere near London. It is bad for the mind to live without society, and worse to live with mediocrity; therefore the environs of London will obviate these two evils. But I like the idea. I cannot bear Scotland in spite of every natural beauty, the people are so odious (don’t tell Mrs. Colvile). Their hospitality takes one in, but that is kept up because it is their pride. Their piety seems to me mere love of argument and prejudice; it is the custom to make a saturnalia of New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day they drown themselves in whisky. Last New Year’s Eve being Sunday, they would not break the Sabbath, but sat down after the preaching till 12 o’clock; the moment that witching hour arrived, they thought their duty fulfilled, seized the whisky, and burst out of their houses, and ran about drinking the entire night, and the whole of Monday and Monday night too. This is no exaggeration, you have no idea the state they are in – men lying about the streets, women as drunk as they, – in short, I never was more disgusted…
Lady Lansdowne did not send the Pelisse. She sent me ribbons, an Indian muslin gown, quantities of French-work to trim it, four yards of lace, a dozen pocket-handkerchiefs; and that touching Lord Lansdowne sent me a beautiful set of coral. She also sent me a white gros de Naples gown. In short, she has done it uncommon well, and I love her as much as I can, and who can do more?
Lady Sarah Sophia Fane, daughter of Lord Westmoreland, married in 1804 5th Earl of Jersey.
The Duchess of York died August 6, 1820.
Lady Harriet Cavendish, married in 1809 Lord Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville.
Lady Elizabeth Thynne married in 1816 Lord Cawdor. They had seven children.
Major-General Sir Guy Campbell, Bart. He married in 1817 Frances Burgoyne, who died the following year when her child Fanny was born.
Right Hon. Hugh Elliot, Governor of Madras in 1814 to 1820, brother of the 1st Earl of Minto, Governor-General of India.