On the fourth “... the Child went into the litter to go to London.” There is no comment. It must have been a pathetic little departure.
On the ninth she received, besides the news that her mother was dangerously ill, “a letter from my Lord to let me know his determination was the Child should go to live at Horsley, and not come hither any more, so as this was a very grievous and sorrowful day to me.” An unusual bitterness escapes from her pen:
All this time my Lord was in London where he had all and infinite great resort coming to him. He went much abroad to Cocking and Bowling Alleys, to plays and horse races, and commended by all the world. I stayed in the country, having many times a sorrowful and heavy heart, and being condemned by most folks because I would not consent to the agreement, so as I may truly say I am like an owl in the desert.
And a few days later:
My Lord came down from London, my Lord lying in Leslie Chamber and I in my own. My Lord and I after supper had some talk, we fell out and parted for that night.
There was worse to come, for at the end of the month her mother died, “which I held as the greatest and most lamentable cross that could have befallen me,” and, mixed up with this sorrow, which is evidently genuine, is the fear that she may be definitely dispossessed of the inheritance of her forefathers. She found, however, that she had the disposal of the body, “which was some contentment to my aggrieved soul.” Her sorrows begin to lighten. Dorset, probably perceiving his bullying to be worse than useless against a woman of her mettle, tries a different tack: “My Lord assured me how kind and good a husband he would be to me”; they patch up a reconciliation, and she makes over to him certain of her Cumberland estates in default of heirs; they agree that Mrs. Bathurst, apparently a bone of contention, should “go away from the Child ... so that my Lord and I were never greater friends than at this time ... and my Lord brought me down to the coach side where we had a loving and kind parting.” He even joined her in the North, and she records how at Appleby Castle she set up the “green velvet bed where the same night we went to lie there,” and how “in the afternoon I wrought stitchwork and my Lord sat and read by me.”
She gives many particulars of how she spent her days in the North. I fancy she was a good deal happier there, and more at home, and consequently more lighthearted, than at Knole. At the same time she was anxious to go back to London to rejoin Dorset, but this for some reason he was not disposed to allow. She consoled herself with innocuous occupations:
This month I spent in working and reading. Mr. Dunbell read a great part of the History of the Netherlands.... Upon the 1st I rose by times in the morning and went up to the Pagan Tower to my prayers, and saw the sun rise.... Upon the 4th I sat in the Drawing Chamber all the day at my work.... Upon the 9th I sat at my work and heard Rivers and Marsh read Montaigne’s Essays, which book they have read almost this fortnight.... Upon the 12th I made an end of my cushion of Irish stitch, it being my chief help to pass away the time at work.... Upon the 21st was the first day I put on my black silk grogram gown.... Upon the 20th I spent most of the day in playing at Tables. All this time since my Lord went away I wore my black Taffety night-gown[[4]] and a yellow Taffety waistcoat and used to rise betimes in the morning and walk upon the leads and afterwards to hear reading. Upon the 23rd I did string the pearls and diamonds left me by my mother into a necklace.
At last the summons came, and “upon the 24th Basket set out from London to Brougham Castle to fetch me up. I bought of Mr. Cleborn who came to see me a clock and a save-Guard [= cloak] of cloth laced with black lace to keep me warm on my journey.” Dorset sent in the retinue to fetch her, moreover, a cook, a baker, and a Tom Fool.
Her arrival in London was auspicious: Dorset and a company of relatives came out to meet her at Islington, so that there were in all ten or eleven coaches, and when she arrived at Dorset House she found the house “well dressed up against I came,” and the Child met her in the gallery. Moreover, “all this time of my being at London I was much sent to and visited by many” (the young heiress, whose matrimonial disputes had raised so much dust at Court, was an object of interest and curiosity), and she made friends: “My Lady Manners came in the morning to dress my head. I had a new black wrought Taffety gown which my Lady St. John’s tailor made. She used often to come to me, and I to her, and was very kind one to another.” Such troubles as she had were but slight: “I dined above in my chamber and wore my night-gown because I was not very well, which day and yesterday I forgot that it was fish day and ate flesh at both dinners. In the afternoon I played at Glecko[[5]] with my Lady Gray and lost £27 odd money.” So far, so good. She gave a sweet-bag to the Queen for a New Year’s gift, and was kissed by the King. She went to see the play of the Mad Lover; she went to the Tower to see Lord and Lady Somerset, lying there since their arraignment; she went to the Court to see Lord Villiers created Earl of Buckingham; she ate a “scrambling supper” and went to see the Masque on Twelfth Night. She betrays with an unsophisticated and rather charming ingenuity her delight in these things. But the storm scowled at her over the rim of the horizon, and presently it broke. The first entries are like the splash of the first big rain-drops: “We came from London to Knole; this night my Lord and I had a falling out about the land.” Next day she has Mr. Sandy’s book about the government of the Turks read aloud to her, but “my Lord sat the most part of the day reading in his closet.” Next day his sulks materialized, and he “went up to London upon the sudden, we not knowing it till the afternoon.”