Shortly after, the newly wedded pair travelled to one of Mr. Montagu’s estates in the north; but not alone. They were accompanied by the bride’s sister. The custom of sending a chaperon with a young married couple prevailed. Indeed, down to a comparatively recent period, some husbands and wives, who were married in Yorkshire, may remember that to have started on their wedding trip, or their journey home, without a third person, would have been considered lamentable indecorum.
The bride thus speaks of the journey and the new home. To Mrs. Freind, she writes:
“We arrived at this place (Allerthorpe, Yorkshire), after a journey of six days through fine countries. Mr. Montagu has the pleasure of calling many hundred pounds a year about his house his own, without any person’s property interfering with it. I think it is the prettiest estate and in the best order I ever saw: large and beautiful meadows for riding or walking in, and all as neat as a garden, with a pretty river (the Swale) winding about them, on which we shall sometimes go in boats. I propose to visit the almshouse very soon. I saw the old women, with the bucks upon their sleeves, at church, and the sight gave me pleasure. Heraldry does not always descend with such honour as when charity leads her by the hand.” A little later, Mrs. Montagu writes thus to the duchess:
“The sun gilds every object, but I assure you, it is the only fine thing we have had; for the house is old and not handsome: it is very convenient, and the situation extremely pleasant. We found the finest peaches, nectarines, and apricots that I have ever eat.” Then comes a dash of the old sauciness. She rejoices at the news the duchess had communicated to her, that Lord Dupplin, who once wrote verses on her taking a header into the Mary-le-bone plunging-baths, was the father of an heir to his title and estate. “I think no man better deserves a child. The end justifies the means; else, what should one say for his extreme, surprising, amazing fondness for the lady?... I am glad Lord Dupp enjoys his liberty and leisure. The repose a gentleman takes after the honour of sending a son into the world, may be called ease with dignity.”
Further evidences of the course of her married life are thus afforded by herself. On the 24th of August, Mrs. Montagu tells the duchess:
“It must be irksome to submit to a fool. The service of a man of sense is perfect freedom. Where the will is reasonable, obedience is a pleasure; but to run of a fool’s errand all one’s life is terrible.” And three days later, she writes to Mrs. Freind: “I think we increase in esteem, without decaying in complaisance; and I hope we shall always remember Mr. Freind and the 5th with thankfulness.”
Early in October, Mr. Montagu left his wife, parliamentary business calling him to town. She dreaded the invasion of condoling neighbours, and not without reason. “We have not been troubled with any visitors since Mr. Montagu went away; and could you see how ignorant, how awkward, how absurd, and how uncouth the generality of people are in this country, you would look upon this as no small piece of good fortune. For the most part, they are drunken and vicious, and worse than hypocrites—profligates. I am very happy that drinking is not within our walls. We have not had one person disordered by liquor since we came down, though most of the poor ladies in the neighbourhood have had more hogs in their drawing-room than ever they had in their hog-sty.” One visitor was unwelcomely assiduous. She thus hits him off to the duchess, as a portrait of a country beau and wit: “Had you seen the pains this animal has been taking to imitate the cringe of a beau, you would have pitied him. He walks like a tortoise and chatters like a magpie.... He was first a clown, then he was sent to the Inns of Court, where first he fell into a red waistcoat and velvet breeches, then into vanity. His light companions led him to the playhouse, where he ostentatiously coquetted with the orange wenches, who cured him of the bad air of taking snuff.... He then fell into the company of the jovial, till want of money and want of taste led this prodigal son, if not to eat, to drink with swine.... At last ... he returned to the country, where ... people treat him civilly ... and one gentleman in the neighbourhood is so fond of him as, I believe, to spend a great deal of money and most of his time upon him.”
There are parts in the letter, from which the above is an extract, which show a knowledge of London life, and of the consequences of leading it, which is marvellous. In more lively strain, this Lady of the Last Century moralised on marriage, under all its aspects, to the duchess; and she joked upon and handled the same subject, in her letters to Mrs. Donellan, with an astounding audacity, which was, however, not unnatural, in the days when mothers read Aphra Behn aloud, and sons and daughters listened to that arch-hussy’s highly flavoured comedies. Mrs. Montagu alludes to similar reading when drawing an “interior” for the duchess’s good pleasure, while Mr. Montagu was away. “I cannot boast of the numbers that adorn our fireside. My sister and I are the principal figures; besides, there is a round table, a square skreen, some books, and a work-basket, with a smelling-bottle, when morality grows musty, or a maxim smells too strong, as sometimes they will in ancient books.” She loved such books, nevertheless, much better than she did the neighbours that would be friendly.
“I do hourly thank my stars,” she says, “that I am not married to a country squire or a beau; for in the country, all my pleasure is in my own fireside, and that only when it is not littered with queer creatures. One must receive visits and return them ... and if you are not more happy in it in Nottinghamshire than I am in Yorkshire, I pity you most feelingly.... Could you but see all the good folks that visit my poor tabernacle, oh, your Grace would pity and admire!”
There was neither “squire” nor “beau” in the quiet, refined gentleman she had married. The wife might well be sorry for the absence of such a companion. He had left her, as she expressed it, to her mortification, but with her approbation. She desired him to go, yet half-wished him to stay; but at last “got out honour’s boots, and helped him to draw them on.” “Since I married,” she writes to Mrs. Freind, “I have never heard him say an ill word to any one; nor have I received one matrimonial frown.” For a matrimonial life begun in August, clouds and showers in October would have been an early prodigy indeed. To the duchess, who asked more as to her characteristic doings than her feelings, Mrs. Montagu replied: