Miss Eden's Letters Part 44

_Lord Lansdowne to Miss Eden._

RICHMOND, _August 22_ [1862].

MY DEAR MISS EDEN, Many thanks for your very kind letter. You will see from the date of this I have advanced a step, and tho' not quite well yet, am at least convalescent, and just in a state fully to appreciate a pleasant letter or a pleasant book; the _Semi-Detached_, innocent as it is, did indeed amuse me greatly. I only wish all people could be made half as agreeable. You have been able to hurry on a catastrophe without the a.s.sistance of one villainous couple.

I am much disposed to be seduced by your view of Napoleon III.; no man ever committed such mistakes and knew so well how to get out of them. A friend of Mme. de Stael once said to me that she had an irresistible propensity to throw her friends into the river; but that it was relying upon her skill _pour les repecher, l'un apres l'autre_. This is somewhat the case with him. He would not run so voluntarily into blunders if he did not feel confident of extricating himself. Believe me, always, affectly yours,

LANSDOWNE.

Pray read B. Osborne's speech at Liskeard. One can afford to forgive impudence when it is so amusing.

_Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis._

CHILD'S HILL, HAMPSTEAD, _Monday evening_ [1862].

MY DEAREST THERESA, This has been a great "Semi" day, concluding with your letter which is just come; and I began the morning with four closely-written pages from Loc.o.c.k, who generally throws very cold water on any of my little pursuits. But he says the grandest things of "Semi,"

which he had read on Sat.u.r.day evening, and says that a bystander would have thought him quite mad; he was screaming with laughter by himself, and that he is ashamed to add that in church next day it _would_ come back to him. "It really haunts me." He was longing for Monday to read it loud to Lady L., and he says that he must, at all events, be a good judge of a confinement. _Blanche_'s lying-in is so thoroughly true.

I enclose a bit of Mary Auckland's[572] letter, which also came to-day, and which is the third she has written about it. All the family from Wells have written in the same strain, and Robert, who is painfully punctual, was missing at breakfast the morning after "Semi" arrived; and was discovered in bed, peremptorily declining to get up till he had finished his book. We look upon this as a great compliment, as he never looks at a word. Anne Cowper is equally civil; but then these are all friends, and would say anything that would encourage me to fill up my sedentary sick life with any occupation; so any little word that you hear from strangers is more valuable as a genuine judgment.

To be sure--the luck of having you as my editress, my s.h.i.+eld, my sword, my everything. You know everybody, and are good friends with them all.

_Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis._

CHILD'S HILL, HAMPSTEAD, _Monday_ [_August_ 1859].

MY DEAREST THERESA, The important enclosure arrived safely this morning, and I sent Ellis forthwith to get the money and pay it in at Drummond's, for fear Bentley should fail to-day. But my belief is that he is a wealthy Bentley; and he has behaved like a gentleman, and evidently is not discontented with his bargain. And so, all's well that ends well, even if it be only a Semi-Detached House.

Thank you again and again, dearest Theresa, for all the successful trouble you took. n.o.body but you could have brought the affair to such a good end, and I now fondly think that between this and November you will work up the Harcourt income to __4000 a year! You made __100 out of the __25 I expected, therefore, etc., etc.

You all sound very happy at Harpton, and Lord Clarendon had given me the same account, and said how much his girls[573] were taking to their new cousin, and how pleased they were with Therese's perfect happiness.

The house in Pont Street is a good idea. Therese will be so handy for you to fetch and carry, and it will be such a mere step for her to Kent House. I do not mean to settle yet what my little offering is to be. I want to choose it myself when I go back to town. And then I have rather set my heart on a china dessert service, but if anybody else steps in, I can easily set my heart on something else. There are so many duplicates in wedding presents; such unnecessary quant.i.ties of inkstands and cream jugs; that I think it better to wait a little and hit the spot at the end. I began life by giving my sister Mary a dessert service when she married on __900 a year, and settled in that little cottage at Neasdon; and in all their after wealth Mr. Drummond never would have any other, but went on filling up the breakages in the old pattern to the end. And so it has been my usual wedding _cadeau_ since, and I gave one to J.

Colvile[574] when he went to India, and as I look on Therese as a niece, I should like to go jogging on in the old dessert fas.h.i.+on; so, if anybody consults you, say _that_ is bespoke. So Mr. Harcourt may have one. But you will let me know in the course of time. The Sydney Herberts called here yesterday. They had slept at the Grenville farm and he came very good-naturedly to a.s.sure himself, he said, that I was aware of the complete success of "Semi," which seems to have taken his fancy prodigiously. He said it had become a sort of byword in London, and that if anybody talked of taking a house, the answer was, Semi-detached, of course. I have not seen him for 12 years, and he is not the least altered in looks. They were going to dine with Florence Nightingale[575]

at Hampstead, or rather at her house, for she has come quite to the last days of her useful life and is dying of disease of the heart. Every breath she draws may be heard through her closed doors, but when she can speak she still likes to talk to Mr. Herbert of soldiers' hospitals and barracks, and to suggest means of improving them. Ever your affectionate

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis._

EDEN LODGE, KENSINGTON GORE, _Sat.u.r.day evening, November 1859._

MY DEAREST THERESA, Between Lena,[576] and Lady Ribblesdale,[577] and Eddy and Theresa, and all the maids in the house, I am mistress of every detail of the wedding, and I am so very glad that it all went off so beautifully. Lena says it is the most interesting wedding she has been at; there was so much feeling and family affection floating about; and I hear dear Therese looked very pretty and very pale. But it is _you_, my old dear, that I have been thinking of all day--thinking so much that I am obliged to write to get the subject off my mind. I am so sorry for you, but only just at this moment. And, after all, the wedding is not so bad as the day of proposal to the mother. Then you had nothing to look to but her going away; and now your next prospect is her coming back; and in the meanwhile you have done all in your power to secure her happiness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Hon. Emily Eden

from a drawing by George Richmond, R.A.

Emery Walker Ph. sc.]

G.o.d bless you, dear. This does not require an answer, but I could not resist writing, and I thought you would like to know that I was as well as could be expected; after the fatigue of being at Mrs. Harcourt's wedding this morning. I really feel as if I had been there. Your affectionate

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis._

RICHMOND, _Monday evening_ [_October 1860_].

MY DEAREST THERESA, It is just bedtime, but I must write a line of warm congratulation on the advent of the grandchild and our dear Therese's safety;[578] I missed the announcement in _The Times_ this morning, and it was not till the middle of the day that Lena, with a railroad sort of screech, made the discovery, and then with infinite presence of mind I said, "Then Theresa cannot be come to town and I shall hear from her this evening." And so I did.

What a discovery chloroform is. By the time we are all dead and buried, I am convinced some further discovery will be made by which people will come into the world and live through it and go out of it without the slightest pain.

Don't you think that if Therese continues to go on as well as she has begun you will be able to drive down here? Lady Clarendon sometime ago got an order for Lena to see Strawberry Hill, but as Lena only returned from Wells on Sat.u.r.day I made no use of it till to-day, and then we found Lady Waldegrave was living there. However, an imposing groom of the chambers showed us the pictures, and Lena saw the rest of the home, while I was all the time longing to ask him if he knew anything about Therese, but felt too low in the scale of creation to propound such a question to him.

My best love to her. Do come here. Your affectionate

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to Lady Charlotte Greville._

EDEN LODGE, KENSINGTON GORE, _October_ 24 [1863].

MY DEAREST LADY CHARLOTTE, A sudden wish has seized me to write to you--not that I have an atom of a thing to say except the old hacknied fact that I am very fond of you, and also that I heard constantly of you when I was at Richmond through your sons,[579] and the Flahaults,[580]

and that now I do not see how I am to hear of you at all, except somebody at Hatchford (not you) will have the kindness to write to me.

Barring the loss of the view, and the drives in that beautiful park, I do not miss my Richmond so much as I expected.

There is always something intensely comfortable in home, and my own books and things, and I am very busy with a new sitting-room that I have made upstairs, by throwing two small bedrooms into one. It has made a very pretty warm room, looks clean and bright, and then there is the fun of furnis.h.i.+ng it. It is painful to look out of the window. Those dreadful Royal Commissioners have cut down all the fine trees belonging to Gore House[581] and are running up a blank wall 20 feet high, for their new garden.

My own trees are the only ones left in this neighbourhood, and though the blank wall is better than another row of houses staring into my garden, the general effect is that of living just outside the King's Bench Prison. I look upon a man who cuts down a large tree in London as capable of committing murder, or any other crime, and have a vague idea that the Road Murder[582] might be traced home to Prince Albert and Lord Granville, or one of these Commissioners.

It will interest Lady Ellesmere to know that Lena[583] has returned to her navvies, and has been greeted with the greatest warmth. Indeed, I should prefer a little more coolness in her place, as they all insist on shaking hands, and I imagine was.h.i.+ng is a virtue they do not practise more than once a week. However, they are an interesting race, very grateful in their rough way; and the Controller and Clerk of the Works both say that there is a great improvement in their habits, and are very eager now to encourage the readings. A great deal of the work in these gardens has now pa.s.sed into the hands of London bricklayers and carpenters. They steadily declined listening to Mr. Ward, the missionary, and were very rude to him.

He was very anxious Lena should try and tame them, so she began by collecting the debris of her navvies, and sitting down with them under the old tree (which they have killed of course), and some of the bricklayers gathered round and began to laugh, so she told them very quietly that they need not come out of their shed to listen to her if they did not like it, but that if they came out she could not allow any laughing at such a serious subject. And they took it very well and said they did not mean to jeer, and that if she would come to their shed, they would listen if they might smoke; and the navvies in their gentleman-like way advised her to go, and said they would go with her, and they made a path with planks and put up a sort of seat, and showed the bricklayers how the little lady, as they call her, was to be treated. And it all went well. She read them a tract called Slab Castle, which always touches them, and when she came to the chapter on the Bible, half of the bricklayers were in tears, particularly the ones who had laughed, and they conveyed her to the gate, begging she would come again, and clamorous for copies of Slab Castle--which I advise her to decline giving for the present. But they have been extremely civil and attentive since, and she has certainly heard such satisfactory accounts of her old congregation, that it is an encouragement to go on. My love to Lady or Lord E., and believe me ever, dearest, your affectionate

E. EDEN.

I hope Alice will not insist on my liking Miss Yonge's new book.[584] It is more unintelligible than "The Daisy Chain," though not quite so tiresome. But she brings in too many people. There are four generations of one family, and her moral is quite beyond me. Those that are well brought up turn out wicked, and the worldly family produce a crop of saints. I am proud to say I am quite incapable of construing the slang she makes her ladies talk.

_Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lewis._

EDEN LODGE, KENSINGTON GORE, _Monday_, _December_ [1863].