1 NORTH AUDLEY STREET,
April 30, 1831.
On Monday last I drove to Apsley House, without the slightest suspicion that the Duchess had been worse than when I had last seen her. When I saw the gate only just opened enough to let out the porter's head, and saw Smith parleying with him, nothing occurred to me but that the man doubted whether I was a person who ought to be admitted; so I put out my card, when Smith, returning, said, "Ma'am, the Duchess of Wellington died on Saturday morning!"
The good-natured porter, seeing that I was "really a friend," as he said, went into the house at my request, to ask if I could see her maid; and after a few minutes the gates opened softly, and I went into that melancholy house, into that great, silent hall: window-shutters closed: not a creature to be seen or heard.
At last a man-servant appeared, and as I moved towards the side of the house where I had formerly been—"Not that way, ma'am; walk in here, if you please."
Then came, in black, that maid, of whose attachment the Duchess had, the last time I saw her, spoken so highly and truly, as I now saw by the first look and words. "Too true, ma'am—she is gone from us! her Grace died on Saturday."
"Was the Duke in town?"
"Yes, ma'am, BESIDE HER."
Not a word more, but I was glad to have that certain. Lord Charles had arrived in time; not Lord Douro. The Duchess had remained much as I last saw her on the sofa for a fortnight; then confined to her bed some days, but then seemed much better; had been up again, and out in that room and on that sofa, as when we heard her conversing so charmingly. They had no apprehension of her danger, nor had she herself till Friday, when she was seized with violent pain, and died on Saturday morning, "calm and resigned."
The poor maid could hardly speak. She went in and brought me a lock of her mistress's hair, silver gray, all but a few light brown, that just recalled the beautiful Kitty Pakenham!
So ended that sweet, innocent—shall we say happy, or unhappy life? Happy, I should think, through all; happy in her good feelings and good conscience, and warm affections, still LOVING on! Happy in her faith, her hope, and her charity!
To MRS. R. BUTLER.
LONDON, May 6, 1831.
One of our farewell visits yesterday was to Mrs. Lushington; and when we had talked our fill about our brother Pakenham, we went to politics, of which every head in London is fuller than it can hold. Lord Suffield described the scene in the House of Lords [Footnote: On the opening of Parliament, when the King was to propose the bringing in of the Reform Bill.] as more extraordinary than could have been imagined or believed. One lord held down by force, and one bawling at the top of his voice, even when the door opened, and the King appeared as his lordship pronounced the word "RUIN!"
Ruin did not seize the King, however, nor was he in the least affected by the uproar. He walked calmly on.
"I kept my eye upon him," Lord Suffield said; "I looked at his knees, they did not tremble in the least. I am sure I could not have walked so firmly; I do not believe another man present could have been so calm."
The King quietly took out his paper, felt for his spectacles, put them on composedly, and read with a firm voice. They say nothing was ever like the confusion and violence since the time of Charles I. and Cromwell.
The day before yesterday we did a prodigious deal. Mr. Drummond came at ten o'clock, by appointment, to take us to the Mint, to see the double printing press; and we saw everything, from the casting the types to the drying the sheet; and then to the India House. There was some little stop while Pakenham's card, with a pencil message to Dr. Wilkins, was sent up. While this was doing, a superb mock-majesty man, in scarlet cloak and cocked hat, bedizened with gold, motioned us away. "Coachman, drive on; no carriage can stand before the India House—that's the rule."
Dr. Wilkins came out of his comfortable den to receive us, laid down his book and spectacles, and showed us everything. The strangest thing we saw was a toy of Tippoo Sahib's, worthy of a despot—an English soldier, as large as life, in his uniform, hat, and everything, painted and varnished, lying at full length, and a furious tiger over him; a handle, invisible at a distance, in his ribs, which, when turned by the slave, produced sounds like the growling of the tiger and the groans of the man!
We had a very pleasant day at Epping. Mrs. Napier went with us; I inside with her, Fanny on the barouche-seat with Pakenham, and Lestock behind with Sneyd. The place is so much improved! I saw Fanny's horse Baronet: very pretty.
2 o'clock, Luncheon.
Pakenham is eating his last bit of gooseberry pie: enter Sneyd: boxes—hammering—dreadful notes of preparation. Pakenham yesterday wore the trefoil pin with his aunt's hair, and the sleeve-buttons with his mother's and sister's hair; and I have added a locket to hang to his watch-chain, with a bit, very scarce, of my own hair. The wind is fair: we shall hear from him from Deal.
To MRS. EDGEWORTH.
NORTH AUDLEY STREET,
May 7, 1831.
I wrote to Harriet yesterday all about Pakenham to the moment he left this house with Sneyd to join Lestock in the City, and go on to Gravesend.
Half an hour after we had parted from Pakenham, and before we had recovered sense, came a great rap at the door. "Will you see anybody, ma'am?" I was going to say, "No, nobody," but I bid Smith ask the name, when behind him, as I spoke, enter Mrs. Lushington. "I have forced my way up—forgive me, it is for Pakenham; I hope I am not too late; I've brought him good letters from Mrs. Charles Lushington."
Comprehending instantly the value of the letters, and our carriage being most luckily at the door, into it Fanny and I got, and drove as hard as we could down to the dock, to the very place where they were to take the Gravesend boat. You may imagine the anxiety we were in to be in time, boat waiting for no one; and then the stoppages of odious carts and hackney coaches in the City: I do not believe we spoke three words to each other all that long way. At last, when within a few minutes of the end of our time, we were encompassed with carts, drays, and omnibuses, in an impenetrable line seemingly before us. Fanny sent Smith on foot with the letters and a pencil note. We got on wonderfully, our coachman being really an angel. We reached the wharf. "Is the Gravesend boat gone?" "No, ma'am, not this half-hour; half after four, instead of four, to-day."
We took breath, but were still anxious, watching each with head out on our own side; for Smith had not appeared, and Lestock, Sneyd, and Pakenham had not arrived: great fear of missing them and the letters in the hurly-burly of packages, and packers, and passengers, and sailors, and orderers, and hackney coaches, and coachmen, and boatmen, men, women, and children swarming and bawling.
But at last Smith and Lestock appeared together, and the letters got into Pakenham's hand: he and Sneyd had gone into the boat, so we saw no more of them; but Lestock sent us off on a new hurry-skurry for pistols, ordered but not brought. To the Minerva counting-house we drove, to send the pistols by some boatswain there: got to counting-house: "Boatswain gone?" "No, ma'am, not yet," said the dear, smiling clerk. So all was right, and Pakenham had his pistols.