A Lady of England: The Life and Letters of Charlotte Maria Tucker. Agnes Giberne
re-echo the cheerful tone of your note, love. I do indeed feel that we are loaded with blessings. I enjoy this place exceedingly, it is so pretty; just the place to “moon” about in. Don’t you remember Mrs. D’Oyly taking us to see it, when we drove here in two carriages, and you were with the sprightly, and I with the sedate party? I feel sure that this was the identical old house. My room ought to be haunted, only it is not. It is such a pity that you have not the fairy carpet to come here without fatigue. But, as it is, you serve as a magnet, to help to draw me back to Middlesex without regret.
‘Kind love to dear Mr. Hamilton, and twenty kisses to the Princess of babies. I can well imagine the pleasure that she is to you—a large lump of sugar in your cup!’
TO MISS BELLA F. TUCKER.
‘Dec. 12, 1854.
‘We went to St. James’ Park to-day, to see Her Majesty on her way to open Parliament. I had an excellent view of our poor dear Queen; and the sight of her mournful subdued countenance, as she bowed graciously to her people, but without the shadow of a smile, quite touched my heart. This war weighs very heavily upon her; and I am anxious to know whether she was able to get through her speech without breaking down altogether. She looked to-day as though it would have taken less to make her weep than laugh.
‘How England is exerting herself to send comforts to her brave sons in the Crimea! A lady was here to-day who, having seen that books were thought desirable presents to the Army, made up a box of them, which was to go to a Mr. S. who had offered to receive them. But when her intended gift was known—“O pray do not send any more books!” was the poor receiver’s cry. “We have seventy thousand volumes!” and they did not know how such a tremendous library was to be forwarded. In the lint department, parcels came in at the rate of two hundred a day! Good-bye.’
TO THE SAME.
‘Jan. 13, 1855.
‘It is singular in how many ways last year I seemed to be taught a lesson of patience. I was disappointed over and over and over again. In one matter in which I was greatly interested, I was so at least five times; but before the close of the year I had cause to say with much pleasure—“I am glad that I was disappointed.” Another time I had a very heavy heart from a different source of disappointment; and some months later I was grieved, even, I am half ashamed to say, to tears; and yet before December was out I was actually glad of both these disappointments, as well as the five others; and a good appeared to spring from the evil. Now, if I am inclined to be impatient—and very impatient I am by nature—I try to remember my experience, and really to get the valuable lesson by heart. I think it a good plan at the end of a year to review the whole, to try and find out what especial lesson has been set one to learn in it. I found it to be praise one year; last year patience. I know not what it will be this year. I hope that—but no, I will not write what I intended. Whatever is, is best. We have not to choose our tasks, but to learn them.’
TO MRS. HAMILTON.
‘June 15, 1855.
‘What news have I to give you? We have had a nice note from dear Henry to-day, saying nothing about health, except that Robin is well. St. G. and I have just come from a loiter at the Botanical Gardens, which showed us that we need be under no great concern, were hemp and flax exterminated from the vegetable world, and silkworms to leave off being spinsters, as we could dress cheaply and well on plantain fibre, have capital paper and excellent ropes, etc.’
In the August of 1855 she had the pleasure of going with her brother, Mr. St. George Tucker, to the great French Exhibition at Paris. This was the celebrated occasion of the Queen’s visit to Napoleon, after the close of the Crimean War; and Paris was thronged. So full was the place that rooms in Paris itself were not to be had, and they went to an hotel in Versailles, occupying apartments which had once been occupied by Louis Napoleon. Charlotte’s warlike enthusiasm showed itself in the fact that she was willing to pay twenty-five francs apiece for seats at the Champs de Mars, where they might witness the review of 45,000 French troops. When Her Majesty had quitted Paris, it became possible to obtain rooms at the Hôtel Bristol.
From Versailles she wrote to Mrs. Hamilton, on the 21st of August:—
‘Dearest Wifey,[5]—You wished for a letter from France, so here is one; but if you expect a description of what I have seen, I really cannot undertake to give you even a précis. Paris surpasses my expectations. All in its gala dress as it is now, swarming with people, crowded with soldiers, gay with fluttering flags and triumphal arches—it is really a sight in itself. The grand Exposition of pictures is splendid; it is only too large. I was amused at it by a lady coming up to me, and politely requesting me to inform her who Ophelia was. An old French lady, looking at a picture of the burial of Harold, and, I suppose, feeling that the subject might be painful to me as a Saxon, politely assured me of her regret at that monarch’s death! “Let bygones be bygones,” say I.
‘Most of the French foot-soldiers are very little fellows, compared to some of our troops; but amongst the Cavalry are very fine tall men. The Zouaves are very heathenish-looking warriors. They dress something like Turks, with all about their throats so perfectly bare that they quite invite you to cut their heads off.
‘St. G. and I so enjoyed this exquisite evening in the stately gardens! A fine military band was performing, the people were happily listening, little children skipping about, the glorious sunset tints illuminating a palace fit for the “grand Monarch.”
‘We have seen our Sovereign Lady three times, which was being in great luck. I am rather tired of writing, so will only add kindest love, and beg you to believe me your ever attached,
C. M. Tucker.
‘P.S.—I told a fat funny little French baba to-day that I had a niece younger than herself, and asked her if she would not like to see her. The answer was unsatisfactory.’
The Crimean War was ended; and two years later came the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, with its awful carnage, its heaps of slain, its tortured women and children, its heroic determination, its dauntless courage. Then was seen a Continent, lost apparently in one day, won back to the British Crown by mere handfuls of indomitable men facing armed myriads. Such a tale had never been told before.
If Charlotte’s patriotism had been stirred by the Crimean struggle, this came nearer to her yet! She had five brothers, all in India, all more or less in daily peril. Mr. Henry Carre Tucker was Commissioner at Benares; Mr. St. George Tucker was at Mirzapore; Mr. William Tucker was in a less acutely unsafe position; Mr. Charlton Tucker, after seeing his Colonel shot down, was for weeks in hiding. All these escaped. But her early companion, Robert—the father of her ‘Robins,’—was among the slain; and the three children, already long half-orphaned, became now wholly orphaned.
Robert Tucker’s remarkable powers, and his successes at Haileybury, have been earlier spoken about. Naturally of a serious and stern disposition, though not without lighter traits, he had been a good deal saddened by troubles, which no doubt resulted in the more complete dedication of himself and all that he possessed to the Service of his Divine Master. A short sketch of his life, written by his sister Charlotte, and published by the S.P.C.K., tells of his work at Futteypore, where for many years he was Judge.
About four years before the Mutiny he had written home about the ‘extraordinary success’ which was attending his Christian school, established and kept going by himself. On Sundays he was in the habit of regularly addressing a collected crowd of Natives; literally ‘the poor, the maimed, the halt, the blind’; and he did not teach them only, but also ministered liberally to their bodily needs.
In her little sketch Charlotte says of him—‘Careless of his own comfort, restricting his personal expenses to a very narrow compass, he gave to the Missionary cause at the rate of forty pounds monthly, and one year even more’; adding that with ‘shrinking from ostentation’ he had never given his name on these occasions. And again—‘It was his deep and abiding sense of the debt which he owed to his Saviour, which made the Judge devote not only his substance but his heart and his soul to the Lord. How deep was the gratitude