Herein, perhaps, we may divine the reason for the otherwise incomprehensible move from Alresford, where the cost of living would be cheap[4] as compared with the high prices obtaining at fashionable Lyme! Nevertheless, although the influence of the brooding shadow was insistent, these days at Lyme Regis were not without their excitement and pleasures.
“One incident that occurred there—a frightful danger—a providential escape—I shall never forget,” says Miss Mitford in her Recollections.
A ball at the Rooms was about to take place, and a party of sixteen or more persons dressed for it had assembled in the Mitford dining-room for dessert, when suddenly the heavy plaster ornamentation of the ceiling crashed down in large masses upon the folk seated beneath. Fortunately the only damage was to the flowers and feathers of the ladies, the crystal and china, and the fruits and wines of the dessert, together with a few scratches on the bald head of a venerable clergyman.
“I, myself,” she continues, “caught instantly in my father’s arms, by whose side I was standing, had scarcely even time to be frightened, although after the danger was over, our fair visitors of course began to scream.”
But it was in the planning and carrying out of excursions in the neighbourhood that Dr. Mitford showed to greater advantage, giving full play to those characteristics which, as opposed to his general selfishness, endeared him then and always to children. Hand in hand with his little daughter, vivacious and inquiring, the two would sally forth in quest of glittering spars and ores, of curious shells and seaweeds and of the fossils which abounded in the Bay, the collection to be finally carried home and laid out in a certain dark panelled chamber which, after the book-room, was the most favoured spot in all the house to the little girl.
Sometimes these excursions would take them towards Charmouth, at others to the Pinny cliffs, where, “about a mile and a half from the town, an old landslip had deposited a farm-house, with its outbuildings, its garden, and its orchard, tossed half-way down amongst the rocks, contrasting so strangely its rich and blossoming vegetation, its look of home and comfort, with the dark rugged masses above, below and around.”
At other times they would pace together that quaint old pier, the Cob, or ascend the hill to Up-Lyme, whence they might watch the waves swirling in sheets of green and spumey white in the Bay below.
Very happy, on such occasions, was the child, although the indefinable shadow dogged her, now vague, now portentous.
At last, and little more than a twelvemonth after their removal to Lyme, there was a hurried flitting, following short and stormy interviews with landlords, lawyers and others.
One fateful night “two or three large chests were carried away through the garden by George and another old servant.” Everything was to be sold so that everybody might be paid. Save a few special favourites among the books, the library was left for disposal by auction, and a day or two after, Mrs. Mitford and the child, with Mrs. Mosse, the housekeeper and a maid-servant, left Lyme and its shadow for London and a shadow of more sinister bearing.