A Lady of England: The Life and Letters of Charlotte Maria Tucker. Agnes Giberne
family; not least so to Charlotte, who had always loved him with an intense devotion. Probably few fathers are quite so devotedly beloved as was old Mr. Tucker; but not many men, and especially not many men of his years, can throw themselves into the interests and amusements of their children, as he was able to do.
They had till then hardly realised how suddenly the call might come. As his biographer says, he had been always ‘so full of life, there had been so much activity of body, so much energy of mind, so much elasticity of spirit, that they had never associated with all this vitality a thought of the stillness of death.’ Now, without warning, the foe was at their very door; and the shadow of his great danger weighed heavily upon them all.
In answer to many prayers he was given back to them again, just for a little while. But they could never quite forget how nearly he had been taken from them, how unexpectedly the great separation might come.
Another event of 1850 was the marriage of Charlotte’s brother, William Tucker, at Brussels. It came almost immediately upon Mr. Tucker’s rally from his severe illness; and Charlotte had the pleasure of being taken to Brussels for the wedding by her brother, St. George Tucker, then home for a short time from India. It would be interesting to know her first impressions of the Continent, but not many letters of this date are available. The two which follow are among the last belonging to her unshadowed younger life, before the true meaning of loss and sorrow had dawned upon her. One black cloud had gathered and dispersed; but it was soon to roll up again; and then the storm would break.
‘Oct. 3, 1850.
‘Dearest Laura—We have finished the volume of stories which we were reading—which by the way resembled the pottles of strawberries sold in the streets, capital at the beginning, but as one gets further on, miserably inferior—and now Fanny has gone to her dear Will-making, so I keep her pen in company by writing to you. I soon knocked off my Will, and we have just the same sum to dispose of, but her large sheets of paper are not covered yet.
‘Now what shall I write to you about, dear—for we write so often that it is impossible that we should often have much to write about? The sun shines one day, and does not shine another; the sea is rough one morning and calm the next. I may have to follow the style of Letitia in her well-known note, “sometimes we pass Fummity, and sometimes we do not.” Things go on quietly, nothing changed but my half-sovereign. I had to buy new ribbons for Letitia to-day, and fear that I shall have to supply the children with fresh gloves.
‘I have been reading about our poor friend, the first of the Blacks, to-day; and it appears that his character was very fairly drawn by Miss Martineau. I was glad to know a little about the after doings in Hayti, and find that Dessalines—that fierce fellow, husband of Theresa—was made first Emperor, and killed in about two years. He was a great savage, but his wife an amiable lady. Then came King Henri I.—our friend Christopher the Cook—who was king at the time that my informant wrote, that is to say, in 1819. A famous king he seems to be, or have been, with a good palace, standing army of 25,000 men kept in strict discipline, a hereditary aristocracy—all of the colour of coal—and ecclesiastical establishment. He was considered in person very much like King George III.—barring complexion, I suppose—and, in short, that part of Hayti which owned him for king seemed in a very flourishing condition in 1819.
‘Do you remember the name of Thaurepas (?), the blacky General who weakly surrendered his post to the French? What do you think the grateful Monsieurs did to him? Nailed epaulettes on his shoulders and a cocked hat on his head, and then threw him with his wife and children into the sea! Would one believe such things of men in the 19th century? I should like to know something of the present state of Hayti, and whether the throne is filled by a son of Henri I., for I suppose that Christopher is hardly living still. If he were, would you not like to have his autograph?
‘I have told you all this about Hayti, because I thought that, like myself, you would be pleased to know what really became of the characters in Miss Martineau’s Romance, and one seldom meets with a book which throws any light upon such an out-of-the-way subject.’
‘Oct. 18, 1850.
‘Dearest Laura—We have been luxuriating in the letters from Paris. … All things look so bright and joyous! I have twice sung “The World is so Bright” to-day con amore, and my heart is so lightsome that I could dance. I do not think that I have once seen precious Father dull since my return. He desires me to say that he cannot quite countenance a visit to Lebanon. It is rather too far, and Lord Ellesmere was very ill on his way thither; so dear—— must give up her Blackbeard, and content herself with Sir Peter. Now Mamma is reading St. George’s note. Papa is smiling away—his dear lips apart. He looks so nice in Clara’s beautiful cap!
‘Henry thinks so much of you, dear. He says that you are a sweet girl, and that he loves you extremely. I cannot tell you all the kind things he says of you. …
‘We are such a comfortable party, and our loved absent ones help to make us more so. … This is a very disconnected sort of note, a sort of patchwork, for my ears are as much employed as my hand, and I have every now and then a message to darn in—then, O my chilblains! But I am determined to complain of nothing, for I am so overloaded with blessings. Dearest Parents are just going out. The weather is delicious. The world is so bright, the world is so fair! Yes, even now, when she has only a wreath of dahlias, and decks herself in yellow like the sweet little Blossom! …
‘I should like to think that our dear trio are enjoying themselves as much at Paris as I am at home. I hope and trust that we may all have such a happy winter together, when “Love’s shining circlet” has all its gems complete except the dear Indian absentees.’
This was written in the autumn following Mr. Tucker’s dangerous illness. After a long and tedious convalescence, his health had steadily improved through the summer months, and during the autumn he seemed to be almost himself again—able to walk out regularly, able to read much and thoroughly to enjoy being read to by his wife and daughters. In the evenings he would delight in their music, varied by merry talk and by an occasional rubber of whist.
With the coming of winter acute neuralgic pains took possession of him; and though some little improvement was seen with the advent of spring, it was not permanent. In the end of May 1851 he was taken to Brighton for a few days’ change; after which he became worse and then again better. Amid these fluctuations, which included at times very severe suffering, his manly courage and patience were never known to fail.
On the tenth of June he seemed so far improved as to talk of going next day to the India House, for the Wednesday’s Council. The Doctor strongly opposed this; and Mr. Tucker went instead to a Flower-Show, with his daughters. For two days afterward he seemed particularly well. On Friday night there was no apparent change for the worse; and his usual tender good-night to them all had in it no shadow of approaching calamity.
But the end was at hand. Before morning sharp illness had seized upon him; and before twelve o’clock he had passed away.
It was a heavy blow to all who knew him; above all to his wife and children. He had been the very life of the house, the very spring of home-brightness. Charlotte’s little niece, Bella Frances, daughter of the elder brother, Henry Carre Tucker, came to spend her first English holidays in the house, not long after Mr. Tucker’s death, and she found the whole family ‘plunged in gloom,’—Charlotte Tucker being exceedingly sad and grave. The only one, indeed, of the whole party who was able to speak cheerfully was Laura. It is probable that Laura had at that date a dawning outside interest in her life, not possessed by any of the others, which may have enabled her to bear up somewhat better than they could.
Many months earlier, after the sharp illness of the preceding year, Mr. Tucker had written a letter to all his children, thanking them for their ‘late unwearied and devoted attentions’ to him. After desiring them ‘not to give way to strong emotions,’ he had gone on to say—‘I have reached a very advanced age, and must be prepared for a change. Old age has its infirmities and suffering, and a prolonged existence is not to be desired. Your care should now be to comfort and console your beloved mother, who has been everything to me and everything