It is perhaps well, for the preservation of continuity, to print the following letter from Lady Hester to her sister-in-law:
Tuesday. St. James's Square. Aug. 29th.
I am so much in Arrear to You, my Dear Madam, and upon so many accounts, that I don't know where to begin first to acquit my Self to You. I feel I want now most to justifie my self to you for not having before exprest how sensible I am to the various Marks I have received of your very obliging Attention upon all the Subjects that you knew wou'd give me the greatest pleasure. The Fact is that an unexpected Journey to Wotton, from which place I return'd but Last night, interfered with my intention of writing to You, and of returning you my sincerest thanks for the great Satisfaction your Letter gave me. It included everything that cou'd make it pleasing to Me, and renew'd all my own Joy for our Successes with Yours added to it, which was a great improvement of all I felt before, and particularly for Louisbourg, Dear, as you know so many ways. I am charmed with my rings, which are after an English Taste that I hope will be followed, and grow fashionable enough to encourage a Variety of Patterns. Last night brought a Large Package from Bath directed to Your Brother, and intended we guess for the Young Militia Man at Hayes. It contained besides a present for Miss Hetty, both which will be faithfully deliver'd this evening, and the sentiments they inspire shall be in due time communicated. In the Interval I believe I must apply to you my Dear Madam to assure the kind sender of my share of pleasure in the present. Miss Mary's Letter received Last night, gave a great deal of Satisfaction to both your Brother and Me by the account of Your Health, and the Progress You have made in a returning to a Diet of Solid Food, a sort of Sustenance so much more likely to restore and confirm your Strength and Spirits than any other. We are glad to find that Doctor Oliver has your approbation, and that he seems to reason with great sense and probability upon your case, and what it is likely to end in. the Gout is not a very desirable Thing, but only comparatively, where the constitution is not strong, for then there ar many Disorders to which people are Liable that are much worse. I am vastly pleased that Our House has the honour of being approved by you, and should be delighted if I cou'd be so happy as to receive You in it, and wish extremely that it was furnish'd and fit for Your reception, but I find Mr. Pitt thinks that it is not proper to have hired furniture put into it, as well as that you cou'd not be so conveniently accommodated in a House so circumstanced, as you will be in the very commodious Lodgings which Bath affords. We are meditating a journey to Hayes the moment Mr. Pitt returns from Kensington, which makes it impossible for me to say as much as I wish to You upon the different Subjects in this Letter, being obliged to give an account of my journey to the Friends I met at Wotton who are now disperst. May I beg you to give my Love to Miss Mary, and to say I hope she will admit what I have been saying as an excuse for my not acknowledging by this Post in a letter to Her what I have in my sentiments acknowledged ever since I heard from her, that I was indebted to her for the Prettiest, as well as the most Obliging, Letter in the World, besides her Bath Fairing which I value properly. I shall only now repeat my request that You will believe me Always my Dear Madam
Your affectionate Sister and most Obedient Servant,
H. Pitt.
Mr. Pitt will endeavour to serve the Chevalier de Chaila as you desire.
All so far had been harmonious enough. Unfortunately, there now occurred a second misunderstanding, to which the ensuing letters relate. It is best to give Lord Camelford's account, which, though mysterious enough, is all we have. 'Her Physicians advising her to discontinue the Waters for a short time to give trial to a course of med'cines, she determin'd to accompany me to London, to see some old friends after a long absence, and to transact certain business, and then to return to Bath. Fearing, however, that her unexpected arrival at her Lodgings in Leicester House might have objections, or that there might be difficulties in her lodging any where in London, she stop'd short at Sion at Ly. Holdernesse's, her particular friend, from whence she removed to Kensington to a house Mr. Cresset lent her. This Journey gave offence to her Brother, and occasion'd their second quarrel. Instead of managing a temper too like his own, instead of yielding to her repeated request of seeing him, when with gentleness he might have explained his wishes to her and have persuaded to whatever he thought best for her or for himself, he satisfied himself with dark hints, imperious messages, and ambiguous menaces convey'd thro' Ly. Hester and his Sister Mary, neither of whom were very happy in the arts of conciliation. Frightened, confounded, and at the same time exasperated by so strange a conduct, she tried to return to Bath, but her strength would not admit of her getting half way thro' the Journey. She return'd to Kensington—she got medical advice—she saw a few of her old friends, who soon disproved the falsities that were every day propagated of her State of Health—by degrees she saw all her fears vanish—the World return to her and nobody flie from her but the Person from whom she expected her chief countenance and support. She sounded the Princess, and found she was at full liberty to live where she pleased, except that the former intimacy was at an end. She met her Brother accidentally at Ly. Yarmouth's, he kiss'd her on both sides with the affectation of the warmest affection; whilst he refused to visit her and his whole family were hostile to her in the cruelest manner.'
The whole affair is obscure, and is not elucidated by the letters of Pitt and his wife which follow. Lady Hester is civil and kind enough, though evidently forbidden to visit or receive her sister-in-law. But what Pitt means by his allusion to 'desultory jaunts,' and 'hovering about London,' and conduct 'too imprudent and restless or as too mysterious' for him to be connected with it, we cannot now conjecture. What harm a spinster of forty-eight could do by staying with Lady Holdernesse at Sion, and thence moving to Kensington, and being undecided as to her plans, it is not easy to determine. It is possible, on considering the whole affair, Ann's own temperate reply, and all that followed, that Pitt knew that his sister was seeking a pension, for which purpose she had gone to Sion and to Kensington (for Lady Holdernesse was the wife of a Secretary of State, and Cresset was a man of influence), and desirous that his name should not be connected with the pension list at this moment of unrivalled popularity and power, he was anxious to have no communication with her. There is a still more probable explanation of Pitt's annoyance with his sister's behaviour. We have seen that Lord Camelford speaks of the 'falsities that were every day propagated about her state of health.' In a letter soon to follow she herself speaks of her stay in France 'before my spirits were so much disordered as they have been since.' Some years afterwards, Horace Walpole wrote of her that she had at times been out of her senses. It seems possible, then, that one of these attacks had taken place at Bath, and that she had broken loose from constraint and come up to London, which would revive the gossip about her condition, and so cause annoyance to her brother, who thought that peremptoriness was the only method of getting her back again to Bath. If this were so, he acted wisely, as she appears to have returned to Bath at once. This last conjecture seems the more probable explanation. In any case the circumstances of the people and the times were full of electricity. Pitt was busy, gouty and irritable; Bute was much above the horizon. Ann was eccentric, wilful, and wayward. Soon afterwards, she had a pension, which annoyed her brother. This is all that we can be said to know. We do not even know the date of this episode.
From Lady Hester Pitt.
It is my Dear Madam extremely unfortunate that from different circumstances which have interpos'd themselves, I have not had it in my power to have the pleasure of seeing you since your arrival in the neighbourhood of London, and I am quite concern'd that by Your Brother's business I am so circumstanced today, as to make it impossible for me to receive that Satisfaction. There is to be a meeting of the Cabinet here this Evening, which Always engrosses my Apartment and banishes me to other quarters. We are but just arrived from the Country, which I think has done your Brother good. He desires I wou'd assure you of his affectionate Compliments, and Let you know that his present Pressure of business is so great that it does not leave him the Command of a quarter of an hour of his time, so as to be able to assure himself beforehand of the pleasure of seeing any friend. therefore under that uncertainty, and fearing he may miss of the Satisfaction of meeting You, he desires thro' me to wish you a safe return to Bath, so much the best place, He is perfectly convinced, for Your Health. We are both very glad to hear you have had a confirmation from Doctor Pitt of the efficacy you may expect to find in those waters for your Complaints. I must not end my Note without expressing how much I was flattered by your remembrance of Little Hetty, tho' I trust Miss Mary did not forget me upon that subject, no more than on that of my real Concern for its being impossible for me to wait upon You, and say for myself how much I feel obliged to You for your kind Letter and message. The Compliments of the season attend You my Dear Madam with many good wishes.
St. James's Square. Tuesday.
St. James's Square. Monday. Jan. 15th.
Dear Madam,—Mr. Pitt is this moment come to Town, and so overwhelm'd with business, that it is quite impossible for Him to write a word to You Himself, in answer to your Note which he has just received. He is very sorry to find you are ill, and wishes me to tell you that you have mistaken Him in thinking he meant to express any desire of His as to your Going, or Staying, which he always meant to Leave to your own Decision, but only to offer you his opinion, and never proposes to take upon Him to give you any further Advice with regard to the place of Your residence, which you have all right independent of any thing with respect to Him to determine as You please for Yourself. I am extremely concern'd to hear your disorder is increased so much as to have made your return to Kensington necessary, as I fear your Situation There must be very uncomfortable and Disagreeable, without Servants, or any of those Conveniences, which are so particularly of Consequence when any body is ill. I hope most sincerely to have the pleasure of hearing you are better, and Able to prosecute what ever May be thought best for Your Health, being very truly Dear Madam
Your Most Affectionate and Most Obedt
H. Pitt.
Friday Morning.
Dear Sister,—I desire to assure you that all Idea of Quarrel or unkindness, (words I am griev'd to find you cou'd employ) was never farther from my mind than during your stay in this neighbourhood. on the Contrary, my Dear Sister, nothing but kindness and regard to your Good, on the whole, has made me judge it necessary that we should not meet during the Continuance you think fit to give to an excursion so unexpected, and so hurtfull to you. I beg my Dear Sister not to mistake my wishes to see Her set down, for a time, quiet and collected within her own Resources of Patience and fortitude, (merely as being best and the only fit thing for Herself) so very widely as to suppose, that my Situation as a Publick Person, is any way concern'd in her residing in one Place or another. all I mean is, that, for your own sake, you shou'd abstain from all desultory jaunts, such as the present. the hearing of you all at once, at Sion; next at Kensington, then every day going, and now not yet gone, certainly carries an appearance disadvantageous to you in this view; I have refused myself the pleasure of seeing You; as considering your journey and hovering about London, as too imprudent and restless, or as too mysterious, for me not to discourage such a conduct, by remaining unmixt with it. this is the only cause of my not seeing you, nor can I give you a more real proof of my affectionate regard for your welfare than by thus refusing myself a great pleasure, and, I fear, giving you a Pain. I offer you no Advice, as to the choice of your residence. I am persuaded you want none; you have a right and are well able to judge for yourself on this point. but if you will not fix somewhere You are undone. I am sorry to be forc'd to say this much; but saying less I should cease to be with truest affection Dear Sister
Ever Yrs
W. Pitt.
Ann Pitt to her Brother.
Dear Brother,—I am going to set out to return to Bath, but as the letter I received from you yesterday leaves me in great anxiety and perplexity of mind, I can not set out without assuring you, as I do with the most exact truth, that there was no mistery in my journey here, nor no purpose but the relief I proposed to my mind. If I had known before I left the Bath that you disapproved of my leaving that place at this time, or of my coming to Town, I wou'd not have done as I have done, and wou'd not even have come near it, tho' the advice given me at Oxford with regard to my health, made me desire to make use of the interval in which I was order'd not to try the waters again, to have the pleasure and satisfaction of seeing You and some of my friends and as I hoped that satisfaction from You in the first place, I will not dissemble that I am very much disappointed and mortified in not having seen you, but as the hurry of important business you are in, and the relief necessary to make you go through it, made it possible for me not to interpret your not seeing me as a mark of unkindness, I never used the word (the word) but to guard against other people using it, upon a circumstance which I thought they had nothing to do with.
When I writ you word from the Bath that I had thoughts of coming to Town for Christmas, I desir'd nothing so much as to do what was most proper according to my situation, and consequently to have your advice, which I told you, very sincerely I wished to be guided by preferably to every other consideration, You best know how I am to attain the end I have steadily desired for Years, as you know I writ you word from France (before my spirits were so much disorder'd as they have been since) that I desired nothing as much as a safe and honourable retreat, that wou'd leave me the enjoyment of my Friends, without which help and suport I find by a painfull experience that it is impossible for me to suport myself. I beg leave to trouble you with my compliments to Lady Hester, and my wishes for the happiness of you both, and of all the little family that belong to you.
I am D Br &c.
This undated note appears to belong to the same time as the preceding ones, and tends to confirm the hypothesis that it was Ann's mental condition that gave rise to anxiety.