I remember well an incident which may serve to illustrate the condition of “tension” which prevailed during those years in the little Harrow world. Mark Drury had two remarkably pretty daughters. They were in all respects as thoroughly good and charming girls as they were pretty, and were universal favourites in the society. Now Mark Drury’s pew in the parish church, where of course he never appeared himself, for the reason assigned on a former page, was situated immediately below the pulpit. And on one occasion the vicar saw, or thought he saw, the two young ladies in question laughing during his sermon, and so far forgot himself, and was sufficiently ill-judged, indiscreet, wrong-headed, and wrong-hearted to stop in his discourse, and, leaning over the pulpit cushion to say aloud that he would resume it when his hearers could listen to it with decency! The amount of ill-feeling and heart-burning which the incident gave rise to may be imagined. Harry Drury, the cousin of the young ladies, and, as I have said, Cunningham’s principal antagonist, never for a long time afterwards came within speaking distance of the vicar without growling “Brawler!” in a perfectly audible voice.
I well remember, though I suppose it must be mainly from subsequent hearing of it, the storm that was raised in the tea-cup of the Harrow world by the incident of Byron’s natural daughter, Allegra, having been sent home to be buried in Harrow Church. A solemn meeting was held in the vestry, at which the vicar, all the masters (except poor old Mark), and sundry of the leading parishioners were present, and at which it was decided that no stone should be placed to commemorate the poor infant’s name or mark the spot where her remains rested, the principal reason assigned being that such a memorial might be injurious to the morals of the Harrow schoolboys! Amid all this Cunningham’s innate and invincible flunkeyism asserted itself, to the immense amusement of the non-evangelical part of the society of the place, by his attempts to send a message to Lord Byron through Harry Drury, Byron’s old tutor and continued friend, to the effect that he, Cunningham, had, on reading Cain, which was then scandalising the world, “felt a profound admiration for the genius of the author”! “Did you indeed,” said Harry Drury; “I think it the most blasphemous publication that ever came from the pen.”
The whole circumstances, object, and upshot of this singular vestry meeting were too tempting a subject to escape my mother’s satirical vein. She described the whole affair in some five hundred verses, now before me, in which the curiously contrasted characteristics of the debaters at the meeting were very cleverly hit off. This was afterwards shown to Harry Drury, who, though he himself was not altogether spared, was so delighted with it, that he rewarded it by the present of a very remarkable autograph of Lord Byron, now in my possession. It consists of a quarto page, on which is copied the little poem, “Weep, daughters of a royal line,” beginning with a stanza which was suppressed in the publication. And all round the edges of the MS. is an inscription stating that the verses were “copied for my friend, the Rev. Harry Drury.”
Of course all this did not tend much to harmonise the conflicting partisans of High and Low Church in the Harrow world of that day.
I may add here another “reminiscence” of those days, which is not without significance as an illustration of manners.
Among the neighbours at Harrow was a Mr. —— (well, I won’t print the name, though all the parties in question must long since, I suppose, have joined the majority) who had a family of daughters, the second of whom was exceedingly pretty. One day this girl of some eighteen years or so, came to my mother, who was always a special friend of all the young girls, with a long eulogistic defence of the vicar. She was describing at much length the delight of the assurances of grace which he had given her, when my mother suddenly looking her straight in the eyes, said, “Did he kiss you, Carrie?”
“Yes, Mrs. Trollope. He did give me the kiss of peace. I am sure there was no harm in that!”
“None at all, Carrie! For I am sure you meant none!” returned my mother. “Honi soit qui mal y pense! But remember, Carrie, that the kiss of peace is apt to change its quality if repeated!”
CHAPTER V.
Meanwhile the fateful year 1820, when I was to be translated from the world of Harrow, and know nothing more of its friendships, quarrels, and politics, was at hand. At the election of July in that year was to begin my Winchester life. I certainly looked forward to it with a feeling of awe approaching terror, yet not untempered by a sense of increased dignity and the somewhat self-complacent feeling of one destined by fate to meet great and perilous adventures, and acquire large stores of experience.