Miss Eden to Miss Villiers.
BROADSTAIRS,
Wednesday, September 1830.
MY DEAREST THERESA, How idle I have been about writing, have not I? But then Hyde[349] told me about the daily packets that he forwarded from Staffordshire and from Devonshire, and so I thought in the bustle I should not be missed, and the real truth is I have been very unsettled the last ten days. George and I went to Hertfordshire to see Mary Eden before her confinement, and from the bore of moving, put it off so long that we came in at last for the beginning of her catastrophe. She was in the greatest danger, poor thing, at last, but thank God is quite safe now, and her boy[350] too.
We went to pass a morning with Lady F. Lamb at Brocket, and saw a great deal of the Panshanger tribe. The Ashleys are as happy as I suppose the Listers mean to be, only I think you must be a shade less demonstrative. Lord Ashley seems to do amazingly well with all the uncles and brothers, and Lady Cowper dotes (or doats, which is it?) on him.
We came back to Greenwich for one day, and then with the utmost courage, the greatest magnanimity, Fanny and I stepped into a Margate steamboat and set off on a visit to Mrs. Vansittart at Broadstairs. George stood on the steps of Greenwich Hospital, left, like Lord Ullin, “lamenting.” We were so late we could with difficulty persuade the steamer to take us in; but at last we boarded her and took her. To my utter surprise I was not the least sick.
This is a nice little place. We know nobody here but Lady G. de Roos,[351] and she is in the same predicament, so we see a great deal of each other.
Caroline ought I believe to account for 14 children, but she has somehow contrived to disperse and get rid of all of them but two very small things of five and six. I ask no questions. I hope the others are all safe somewhere, and in the meantime she is remarkably well and happy. We have a room apiece, and one for our maid, and she must have been terribly afraid we should be bored by the quantity of excursions she has planned for us. We have been to Margate and Ramsgate, and are to go to Dover, and if George comes, perhaps to Calais. But that I think foolhardy. To-day she and Fanny are gone sailing off to some famous shell place. I prefer dry land, if it is the same thing to everybody, so I stayed at home, and I have a fit of sketching on me that amounts to a fever. The day is too short. I am so glad we like being here so much, which sounds like a foolish sentence, but Caroline really has been so kind and active in arranging everything and was so bent on making us come, and is so hospitable now we are here, that I should have been doubly sorry if it had turned out a failure. I was only sorry to leave George, but perhaps he will come and fetch us.
The day we went through London to Hertfordshire your George went to the play with us, and I was afraid we should have to carry him out. He went into strong hysterics at the Bottle Imp, which is certainly one of the most amusing things I ever saw.
Maria[352] wrote so kindly and affectionately to me about your marriage. You would have been pleased with her letter. And old Lansdowne wrote also in such terms about both of you and his delight at the marriage of two people he liked so much, that I do not see why we should not always meet you at Bowood, except the fear that Mr. L.’s domestic peace may be endangered. People were talking of the possibility of a revolution in England the other day, and what they should do for their livelihoods, and Lord Alvanley said, “If it comes to that I know what I shall do; keep a disorderly house and make Glengall my head waiter.” That is a bad story to end with, but I have no time for a better.
Two more letters to write; and a lovely day and fine autumnal weather makes me so happy I cannot bear to lose a moment of it. Ever your most affectionate