The task of apportioning the articles to the delinquents was a severe one for the governess, to whose inquiries the only reply obtainable was “Ce n’est pas à moi,” with the result that she had left on her hands a large quantity of hats, gloves and slippers the ownership of which no one would acknowledge. But there were many other articles which refused to be thus abandoned, and the result was a decorative effect more novel than elegant. Dictionaries were suspended from necks en médaillon, shawls were tied round the waist en ceinture, and loose pieces of music were pinned to the dancing frocks en queue. “I escaped,” says the merry recorder of the incident, “with a good lecture and a pocket-handkerchief fastened to my frock, which, as it was quite clean, was scarcely perceptible.”
Unfortunately for Madame, the dancing-master was not due for an hour, the interval having to be devoted to the drill-sergeant, whose astonishment, when he arrived and viewed the odd habiliments of the pupils, may well be imagined. And to make matters more disconcerting for Madame and more amusing for the culprits, she could not speak a word of English, while the sergeant knew no word of French; so, as drill could not be performed by a squad so hampered by extraneous accoutrements, the sergeant ordered their removal, and Madame, we may well imagine, retired discomfited.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] The Rev. A. G. L’Estrange’s Introduction to The Life of Mary Russell Mitford, related in a Selection from Her Letters to Her Friends. 3 vols., 1870.
CHAPTER V
READING
The new place of residence which Dr. Mitford acquired early in the year 1802, was known as Grazeley Court, a rambling Elizabethan structure of one-time importance, but which, at the time of Dr. Mitford’s purchase, had fallen into sad decay. Originally built for a country gentleman the place had for some reason been abandoned, slowly degenerating until at length it was divided into a number of tenements occupied by agricultural labourers, for which reason and its supposed defective title the doctor was able to secure it and an adjoining eighty acres at the bargain price of a few hundred pounds.
As we have already noted, the Doctor had a certain predilection for country sports and pursuits, although at the same time he was always glad to embrace any and every opportunity afforded him for the display of his peculiar skill at cards with their concomitant excitements and hazards. In these circumstances it is difficult to understand why the residence at Reading should have been given up, bearing in mind its convenience as a centre for Town and the clubs as well as for the coursing grounds of Hampshire and Oxfordshire. Possibly the real reason was that the Doctor had been indulging in that frankness of speech which his daughter named in conjunction with a rashness of action, as one of his unfortunate characteristics; or, it may be, that this was the occasion, to which Miss Mitford refers in her Recollections, when he “got into some feud with that influential body the corporation.”
In any case the purchase was effected, and the Doctor at once threw himself with zest into the labour of making the house habitable according to his own ideas. The situation was ideal. Three miles southwards out of Reading by the Basingstoke road, and one mile to the westward of that important thoroughfare, from which point it was reached by pleasant, overhung by-lanes, the Court occupied the centre of a large garden, at that time overgrown with rank weeds, which gave on to a narrow lane over which was afforded an extensive view to the south. First came a stretch of common, picturesquely dotted with patches of brake and clumps of wild roses intermingled with honeysuckle; in the middle distance were sundry peeps at the snug hamlet of Grazeley, and beyond these were the outlying billowy woodlands which were then, as now, so delightful a feature of the neighbouring countryside.
As might be expected of a house built amid such surroundings in Elizabeth’s day—rumour named it as of later Jacobean origin—it had a certain romantic character. We read of its “old sitting-room, with its large sunny oriel window, and its small walls wainscoted in small carved panels, and of the large oaken staircase, with a massive balustrade and broad low steps; of expansive fireplaces, with highly architectural chimney-pieces adorned with old-fashioned busts and coats-of-arms. Above all, there were two secret rooms, in which priests and cavaliers had been known to hide, and which could be well secured by inward fastenings; the one in a garret, where a triangular compartment of the wall pushed in and gave entrance to a chamber in the roof; the other, where the entire ceiling of a large light closet could be raised, and access obtained to a place of concealment capable of containing six or seven fugitives.”
Such a house, in these our own times, would be eagerly snapped up were it in the market, and any amount of inconvenience suffered by its owner rather than destroy the most insignificant mark of antiquity. Possibly similar houses were less rare in Dr. Mitford’s day; very probably romanticism made no appeal to him, for he quickly made up his mind to rase the whole building to the ground and erect another according to his own design and taste. His daughter, then at school, hearing of the purchase and of her father’s decision, added to it the weight of her fifteen years of wisdom by expressing the hope, in a letter to her mother, that “you will be obliged to take down your house at the farm as it will be much better to have it all new together,” but she altered her opinion later on, as did her parents, when it was too late to stop the work of demolition.