MY DEAREST THERESA, Observe how we write! Not a moment lost, and I shall have the last word, but I meant to write to you yesterday, because the very morning after my last letter, I found by a confidential advice from Longleat that I had forwarded to you a regular London lie about Edward Thynne, and that his marriage, so far from being off, was negotiating with great success. However, it was a secret then; but Lord Henry came yesterday to tell me it was declared, and to-day I have a letter from Lady Bath, apparently in ecstacies: “Write and wish me great joy. You are the first, the very first, to whom I have written my dear Edward’s marriage, and I know you will be pleased. Write to me directly.”
I am not at all pleased, and have not an idea what to write. I think if Edward had been thirty-three instead of twenty-three, had wearied of the world, as the Scotch say, and been disappointed in love several times, as all people are by that time, it would not have been unnatural that he should have married for an establishment; but a boy of that age has no right to be so calculating. I cannot quite make out the story. I heard from a great friend of the family who had been employed in the negotiation that it is the sick plain sister[343] Lord E. marries; that he did not pretend to care about her; supposed if he saw her once before their marriage it would be enough—and so on, which was disgusting.
Lord Henry yesterday carried it off better—said she was rather pretty, well educated, well mannered, and that Edward was in love, and all the right things. Perhaps he is right. I did not know what to tell you about Longleat, it was so long ago. I do not think your Barings[344] will like Lord Henry’s present pursuit. The same name and the other family; but do not for your life say a word of it to them, as I vowed the deepest vows to him yesterday that I would not do him any mischief. Not that I know how I could, and I would not if I could, but I presume he dreads family communications which, as the A. Barings and H. Barings do not speak, I laboured to convince him yesterday were not to be dreaded.
I am quite alone here, George went to Woburn Monday, and Fanny to Eastcombe. I have just cold enough left to excuse myself from dining out with my attached friends and family, so that I see a few morning visitors and have the evenings all to myself. The pleasure of it no words can express. I never can explain what is the fun of being alone in the room with the certainty of not being disturbed; but that there is something very attractive and pleasing in the situation it is impossible to deny. I feel so happy, and sit up so late, and am so busy about nothing.
I had a remarkably pleasant set of visitors yesterday. Your brother George, amongst others, followed Lord Henry, and as usual I was enchanted to see him.
Good-bye dearest. I wish you were come. Your most affectionate
E. E.
Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.
Thursday evening, May 1830.
DEAREST THERESA, Thank you for writing to me. Your letter told me many particulars I had wanted to know, though the one melancholy fact of her deplorable condition[345] Lady F. Leveson wrote to me yesterday. I never was more shocked or grieved. I wrote to Lady Cawdor last night, but begged her not to write, as nothing is so trying as writing in real anxiety. Poor Lady Bath! It is melancholy to think we are not to see her again. After all, we all thought about her and cared about her opinion more than for most people’s; and she was more of an object to us than anybody out of our own families. She was a very kind friend to me when first I came out and when I knew nobody and nobody cared about me, and I cannot name anybody from whom I have received so much gratuitous kindness, particularly at times of trial, and we all of us, you as well as I, never could bear being in a scrape with her. We fretted and were affronted and so on, but there was no bassesse I did not condescend to, to make it up again. I liked her society, and altogether loved her very dearly, and the idea of her present situation poor thing, is very, very painful. I hardly wish her recovery, because it seems doubtful if it would be complete, and the recovery of bodily health alone is not to be wished.