“Most truly affectionate
friends and humble servants,
“W. and G. F.”[144]
[143] Sarah was born on September 21, 1723, so was three years younger than Elizabeth.
[144] William and Grace his wife.
HAYTON FARM
The reason of the unaccustomed silence was this—Sarah was suddenly attacked by smallpox, a disease peculiarly dreaded by Elizabeth. Mrs. Robinson quickly despatched her to Hayton Farm, a family property leased to a yeoman farmer of the name of Smith.
April 8 occurs a letter to the duchess—
“I cannot lose the opportunity which just offers me to send a letter to the post, though I troubled your Grace but yesterday. My sister continues as well as it is possible to be, and has found out her disorder with which she is perfectly content, and sends me very merry messages upon it: they are of the seven day sort, so will turn on Sunday, and on Monday when it is over, I shall possess my soul in quietness. I am afraid this hurry of spirits and fatigue, will not prove of service to my Mamma; and if the dire Hyp does haunt a solitary chimney corner, sure it will visit my Pappa now it is sure to find him at home and alone. For my part, I am in the case of poor David, my friends and kinsfolk stand afar off; and when I am to return home I don’t know. That the distemper may not continue, my Pappa has sent away half a dozen servants who have not had it, and says he hopes to have me back again very soon; but indeed I hope to prevail upon him to try how the air of Mount Morris agrees with his servants, before I return. I live here very easy, and I have got books and all the necessaries and comforts, though not the pomps and pleasures of life. The family are civil and sensible people. As for the Master of the house, he is indeed, to a tittle, Spenser’s meagre personage called Care: his chief accomplishment as to behaviour is silence. I never see him but at dinner and supper, and then he eats his pudding and holds his tongue. I believe his learning amounts to knowing that four pennies make a groat, and the sooner that groat is a sixpence he thinks the better. To give your grace a notion of the sort of persons who compose the Drama:—They are above Farmers considerably, have been possessed in the family, for aught I know, since the Conqueror of above £400 a year, they have a good old house, neatly furnished, but there is nothing of modern structure to be seen in it.
“I am now sitting in an old crimson velvet elbow chair, I should imagine to be elder brother to that which is shown in Westminster Abbey as Edward the Confessor’s. There are long tables in the room that have more feet than the caterpillar you immured at Bullstrode. Why so many legs are needful to stand still, I cannot imagine, when I can fidget on two. There is a good chest of drawers in the figure of a Cathedral, and a looking glass which Rosamond or Jane Shore may have dressed their heads in. Not to forget the clock, who has indeed been a time server; it has struck the blessed minutes of the Reformation, Restoration, Abdication, Revolution, and Accession, and by its relation to time seems to have some to Eternity. It is like its old Master, only good to point the hour to industry; ... it calls his servant to yoke the oxen, get ready the plough, wakes the dairy maid to milk and churn, the daughters hear in it the paternal voice chiding the waste of hours, and rise obedient to its early call; even me it governs, sends me to bed at ten, and makes me rise, oh barbarous! at eight.... The mother of the family, a venerable matron of grave deportment, who was well educated, and moves in the form of antique ceremonies, but is really a sensible woman! The daughters are good housewifes, and I like some qualities in them, which I understand better than their economy. I only wish they could sleep in their beds in the morning, and wake in a chair in the evening!” ...