FROM FRIEND TO FRIEND.
BY LADY RITCHIE.
I.
A child who was, I suppose, once myself sat on the stairs in an old house at Twickenham with a thrill of respectful adventure looking up at the carved oaken figure of a Bishop with benedictory hands standing in a niche in the panelled wall. The house was Chapel House in Montpelier Row, inhabited in those days by a Captain Alexander who had fought in the Peninsular War, and who christened his children by the names of the battles, and my sister and I were spending the summer there while my father was in Germany. We enjoyed the old house and garden, and the youthful companionship of Vittoria Alexander, my contemporary. When I read the address on some letters which have been lately shown me by the present Lord Tennyson, one of those wonderful mental cinemas we all carry in our minds flashed me back to the panelled rooms and the dark hall and the oak staircase and the benedictory Bishop. Among those who passed before him treading the broad steps after the Alexanders had left, came the Poet Laureate and his wife, who lived for a time at Chapel House, where their son Hallam was born. But Tennyson wished to live in the country, and they did not stay very long at Twickenham. An early letter written from thence, introduces a whole party of friends living in those days of peace. It is dated June 25, 1852, and was despatched by Mrs. Tennyson to Mrs. Cameron, her neighbour at Sheen.
‘My dear Mrs. Cameron,—Thank you. It was very pleasant being at Kew Gardens, still we should have liked two pleasant things instead of one.... We are by every post expecting a letter about a house which may send us in another direction, but I am not going to drag you house-hunting even on paper. My husband would, I am sure, listen with most hearty interest to you. The East is a great inspiring theme. Would that his brother Horatio were doing something there ... he would have made a grand soldier of the old school. You would like him if he were not too shy to show himself as he is. He is living with his mother, but we will with all pleasure bring him. I am going to let Mrs. Henry Taylor know when we can say with any certainty when we shall be at home.
‘Hoping that you and they will be able to come to us,
‘Very sincerely yours,
‘Emily Tennyson.’
This was but the beginning of the long life’s friendship and confidence between the two friends. As one reads on through letter after letter it almost seems as if the writers were actually present.