The next note deals again with the affair which is causing Ann uneasiness, but without giving us any clue to it. One cannot however refrain from the surmise that Ann's temper and tongue had now begun to get her into trouble.
Stowe. Octobr ye 12: 1735.
My dear Child,—I can't by letter enter into particulars relating to The affair you mention, nor were I with you, cou'd I give you any other than a general advice, which is, as well as you can to make yourself and others easy: I know this is saying almost nothing, and that is the very thing I think you have only to do: I beg you will be at Quiet as to what you have hitherto done, believe me it is not only irreproachable, but must do you great honour with whoever know your conduct. I will say one word more, which is this, that you shou'd take care not to be misunderstood, at least in any great degree. This is all I can say to you, who have the warmest concern for your happiness and am with more affection than I can tell you,
Yrs
W. Pitt.
There is now an unexplained interval of two years. Some letters have perhaps been lost or destroyed, one has apparently miscarried; or, still more probably, the brother and sister have been together. But the next letter is still dated from Stowe, where William was evidently established on the most familiar footing.
Stow. Novr ye 6: 1737.
You are even with me for all the want of readiness in writing, ever since I began to correspond: I wou'd tell you how many weeks it is, since I wrote to you my last unanswer'd letter, if my memory was strong enough to carry so remote a period of Chronology in my head: I have sometimes told you I have been ashamed of not writing: I take this occasion to retract all Declarations of that sort, and tell you I never was, nor ever will be ashamed of want of regularity in corresponding, after this last silence of yours: I am aware that you must throw the blame upon ye Post, and say you never received the letter in question, and indeed the Doctor has given me an intimation, yt the thing was to take yt turn, without which you wou'd not have been troubled even with these reproaches. the Letter had nothing in it, and yet I had rather you had receiv'd it, if you are in earnest that you did not. I intend to be in Town the beginning of December: I shall see Mrs. Nedham at Bampton before I come:
Yrs
W. Pitt.
I desire you will write immediately to let me know you have no return of ye disorder you had just before you left Hampton court.
In the next he refers to Lord Cornbury, a friend, a Tory, and something of a Jacobite. He was a great admirer of Pitt, and had indeed written an ode to him.
Stow. Novr ye 12: 1737.
I do not think myself obliged to thank you for your letter, it was a defence to an accusation, you was under a necessity of pleading and you did it with the confidence of an old offender, and even went so far as to recriminate upon yr accuser: but let the act of oblivion cover all. however that I may thank you for something, I thank you for haveing hardly any remains of yr cold. Pray keep keeping yourself well till December, in one week of which month I hope to see you. Adieu.
Yrs Most affecly
W. Pitt.
I wish you the Dutchess of Queensbury and Lady Cardigan with all my heart. How do's Ld Cornbury?
CHAPTER IV.
More than sixteen years elapse between this letter and the next, which takes us far beyond our present limit, but it is best to finish the story of Ann. Part of this long interval can be explained by extreme harmony, and the remainder by the reverse. The mutual devotion of William and Ann lasted, says Lord Camelford, till he became Paymaster in May 1746: then they quarrelled. Why, no one knows, or, it is to be presumed, will ever know. Horace Walpole only says that Pitt shook his sister off in an unbecoming manner. Camelford thinks that Pitt disliked Ann's friendship for Lady Bolingbroke, and thought that she was under the influence of Bolingbroke himself, 'that tawdry fellow, as Lord Cobham called him.'[76] Pitt, like most other people, except the rare spirits who loved the brilliant being, profoundly distrusted Bolingbroke, and may not have wished to see Bolingbroke influence assume a footing in his house. Perhaps then he remonstrated, perhaps Ann vindicated her friendship with heat. Between these two fiery natures words might be exchanged in a moment which years would not obliterate. Grattan told Rogers that 'Mrs. Ann Pitt, Lord Chatham's sister, was a very superior woman. She hated him, and they lived like cat and dog. He could only get rid of her by leaving his house and setting a bill on it, "This house to let."'[77] If these two Pitts quarrelled in the fierce Pitt fashion, it is not unlikely that some such expedient would be adopted. But it must be doubted whether they lived like cat and dog, else they would have parted long before. Grattan's statement was made in conversation with all the large outline and picturesque latitude that conversation allows, and he probably knew nothing about the matter. We can only surmise. Lord Camelford tells us that up to the time of the Paymastership (1746) William and Ann had lived together in one of the small houses in Pall Mall which look into St. James's Square, and that when he moved to his official residence at the Pay Office he moved alone. But, as a matter of fact, she had left him some time before, and gone to live with Lady Bolingbroke at Argeville. We have a letter from William to Lady Suffolk, dated July 6, 1742, in which he favours the plan of Ann's living with Lady Bolingbroke, so long as is convenient to her hostess, and then returning home. Moreover, Pitt himself in October of this year 1742 was not living in Pall Mall, but had moved to York Street, Burlington Buildings.[78] Ann had formed a mad project of living in Paris as a single woman, which William justly discountenanced. However, she proceeded to Argeville, where George Grenville found her in September. She may have returned to her brother, but she probably remained abroad, and her having been with the Bolingbrokes so long, even with William's sanction, may have made her less welcome to her brother on her return.