TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Handwriting on [frontispiece] and images on pages [62], [260], [300], and [386] appears to be original to the images, and has been retained in captions.

Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of the chapter.

Original cover has the title “The Life and Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford”, which did not reflect the title on the titlepage. The new original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at [the end of the book], as well as an image of the original cover.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD

MY COTTAGE in “OUR VILLAGE”.

M R Mitford

Miss Mitford’s Cottage at Three Mile Cross.

(From a lithograph published by Mr. Lovejoy, of Reading, while Miss Mitford was in residence.)

MARY RUSSELL
MITFORD
The Tragedy of a Blue Stocking

By

W. J. ROBERTS

(Author of “The Love Story of Empress Josephine,” “Literary
Landmarks of Torquay,” etc.).

Illustrated from Photographs by the Author and from
Contemporary Pictures.

LONDON: ANDREW MELROSE
3 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
1913

Dedication.
To
CONSTANCE, LADY RUSSELL,
of Swallowfield Park,
I Dedicate this Book as a slight token of Gratitude
For the Help and Encouragement she
has so graciously afforded me
in its Compilation.

W. J. ROBERTS

London,
March, 1913.

PREFACE

No figure in the gallery of Early Victorian writers presents a character so charming or so tenderly pathetic as that of Mary Russell Mitford. Added to these characteristics is the fact that her life was, in reality, a tragedy brought about by her blind devotion and self-sacrifice to an object which we are forced to regard as altogether unworthy.

Miss Mitford’s name is not a familiar one to this generation and it is with the desire to alter this that the following pages have been written. It would be impossible, within the compass of a book of this size, to show forth Miss Mitford’s life in its entirety: what we have done has been to select from the records of her life and work such incidents and such friendships as seemed to us to portray her most faithfully. Whether we have succeeded must be left to the reader to judge.

In the compilation of the book many sources of information have been drawn upon and the author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to all who have so kindly helped him in his labours. Chief among these has been Lady Russell of Swallowfield, who, in addition to supplying much material, has made the author still further indebted by her acceptance of the dedication of the book. Miss Rose G. Kingsley has also to be thanked for copies of letters written by Miss Mitford to her father, Charles Kingsley, who lies buried at Eversley, in the neighbourhood with which the book deals largely.

To Miss Josephine M. H. Fairless, Messrs. G. A. Poynder, W. Smith, T. Rowland Kent, H. T. Pugh, J. J. Cooper, J.P., and Alderman J. W. Martin (all of Reading) the author’s best thanks are tendered, as also to the Rev. J. Henry Taylor, of Canterbury (Miss Mitford’s “Little Henry”), the Rev. Alexander A. Headley, Rector of New Alresford, Mr. Bertram Dobell, the well-known bibliophile of London, Mr. W. H. Greenhough, Chief Librarian to the Borough of Reading, and W. H. Hudson, Esq.—the last named for his very kind loan of the pencil sketch of Miss Mitford which figures in this book.

W. J. ROBERTS.

London, 1913.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I
EARLY DAYS IN ALRESFORD

Within the stained but, happily, well-preserved registers of the Church of St. John the Baptist, New Alresford, Hampshire, is an entry which runs thus:—

No. 211.

George Midford of this parish, Batchelor, and Mary Russell of the same, Spinster. Married in this Church by Licence this Seventeenth day of October in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty-five by me, Will Buller,[1] Rector.

It is a prosaic enough entry and yet, as we shall endeavour to prove, it marked the beginning of a tragedy composed of the profligacy and wicked extravagance of one of its signatories, of the foolish, docile acquiescence of the
other, and of the equally foolish and docile, but incomprehensible, infatuation for the profligate one which Mary Russell Mitford, the child of this union, made the guiding principle of her life.

George Midford—or Mitford, as he subsequently spelt his name—was the son of Francis Midford, Esq., of Hexham (descended from the ancient house of Midford,[2] of Midford Castle, near Morpeth), and of his wife Jane, formerly Miss Jane Graham, of Old Wall in Westmoreland, related to the Grahams of Netherby.

He was born at Hexham, November 15, 1760, received his early education at Newcastle School, studied for the profession of medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and was for three years a house pupil of the celebrated John Hunter, in London.

At the conclusion of his studies young Midford, or Mitford as we shall henceforth speak of him, went on a visit to a relative—Dr. Ogle, then Dean of Winchester—through whom he obtained an introduction to Miss Mary Russell, then living alone in the adjacent town of Alresford.

Mary Russell was an heiress—ten years the senior of George Mitford, being then in her thirty-sixth year—and just recovering from a recent bereavement in the death of her mother.

She was the daughter of Dr. Richard Russell, a lineal descendant of the ducal family of Bedford, Vicar of Overton and Rector of Ash—parishes adjoining each other and near to Whitchurch in Hampshire—who, as a widower, married Miss Dickers, the daughter of a Hampshire gentleman of considerable property, in the year 1745.

Childless by his first wife, the offspring of this second marriage was a son and two daughters.

Of these the son and elder daughter died in childhood, leaving Mary, who was born June 7, 1750, the sole heiress to the property of her parents.

Dr. Russell eventually resigned the Vicarage of Overton, but continued both his ministrations and residence at Ash, where he died in 1783, aged eighty-eight years.

At his death his widow and daughter—the latter then thirty-three years of age—removed to a pleasant and commodious house in the Broad Street of that old-world and peaceful township of Alresford, a town the houses of which, save the inns, bear no distinguishing name and number, the staid and sober life of whose inhabitants was only relieved by the mild excitements of market-day or by the noisy passage of the mail-coach as, with clatter of hoof-beats and blast of horn, it rattled gaily through, on its passage from London to Winchester or vice versa.

Mrs. Russell only survived her husband for a little more than two years and died on March 8, 1785, leaving her daughter with a fortune of £28,000 in cash, in addition to house and land property. In the admirable introduction to The Life and Letters of Mary Russell Mitford (published 1870, and contributed by the Editor, the Rev. A. G. L’Estrange) we have a pen-portrait of Mary Russell at this period of her life which, in the absence of any other form of portraiture, we cannot do better than quote.

“In addition to these attractions [her inheritance] she had been carefully educated by her father; and to the ordinary accomplishments of gentlewomen in those days had united no slight acquaintance with the authors of Greece and Rome. She was kind-hearted, of mild and lady-like manners, of imperturbable temper, home-loving, and abounding in conversation, which flowed easily, in a soft and pleasant voice, from the sources of a full mind. Her figure was good, slight, active, and about the middle height; but the plainness of the face—the prominent eyes and teeth—the very bad complexion—was scarcely redeemed by the kind and cheerful expression which animated her countenance.”

To this excessively plain but undoubtedly charming and accomplished woman was the young surgeon introduced, “being easily persuaded by friends more worldly wise than he to address himself to a lady who, although ten years his senior, had every recommendation that heart could desire—except beauty.”

She certainly had every recommendation that the heart of George Mitford could desire, for “though a very brief career of dissipation had reduced his pecuniary resources to the lowest ebb, he was not only recklessly extravagant, but addicted to high play.”

A few months later they were married.

“She, full of confiding love, refused every settlement beyond two hundred a year pin-money, out of his own property, on which he insisted”—words written by Mary Russell Mitford, many years after, and which would contradict our statement of her father’s pecuniary embarrassment, were they not discounted by the words of the Rev. William Harness, who, writing on the matter to a friend, says: “I hear that when Mitford was engaged to his wife she had a set of shirts made for him, lest it should be said that ‘she had married a man without a shirt to his back!’ Of course the story is not true; but it expressed what folk thought of his deplorable poverty and the impossibility of his making that settlement on her, for which my father was trustee, out of funds of his own, as Miss Mitford suggests.”

And so they were married, the bride being given away by her trustee, Dr. John Harness, then living at Wickham, some few miles south of Alresford.

Had the confiding wife misgivings, we wonder? Or was it the excitement natural to such a momentous event in her life that caused the little hand to be so tremulous as it signed the nervous characters, Mary Russell, beneath the bold hand of her lord and master, on that eventful October 17, 1785?

Henceforth, had she but known, she would have need of all the comfort she might wring from those fatalistic words, “Che Sarà, Sarà,” the motto of the Bedfords, whose ancestry she took such pride in claiming.

It had already been decided that Alresford should witness the commencement at least of the surgeon’s professional career, and seeing that the house in Broad Street was commodious and, what was more to the point, well-furnished, there was no need to make a fresh home, and it was there they set up housekeeping together.

That the young man had good intentions is fairly evident, for he continued his studies and, in the course of a year or so, took his degree in medicine which permitted him to practise as a physician.

Thirteen months later a son was born to them, but did not survive. In the Baptismal Register of New Alresford Church is the entry:—

“Francis Russell, son of George and Mary Midford, was privately baptized on the 12th, but died on the 23rd of November, 1786.”

It is important that this entry should be placed on record, for while, in after years, Miss Mitford speaks of herself as the only survivor of three children, two sons having died in infancy, it has been stated in print that “Mary Russell Mitford was their only child.” On the other hand, although careful search has been made, no record of the baptism or burial of a third child has been discovered in the Alresford registers, and we can only assume, therefore, that this child must have died at birth and on a date subsequent to that of his sister.

Sufficient for us, however, is the entry in these same registers:—

“Mary Russell, daughter of George and Mary Midford, baptized February 29, 1788”—

the child having been born on December 16, 1787.

Of these early days we have, fortunately, a picture left by the child herself. “A pleasant home, in truth, it was,” she writes. “A large house in a little town of the north of Hampshire—a town, so small, that but for an ancient market, very slenderly attended, nobody would have dreamt of calling it anything but a village.[3] The breakfast room, where I first possessed myself of my beloved ballads, was a lofty and spacious apartment, literally lined with books, which, with its Turkey carpet, its glowing fire, its sofas, and its easy chairs, seemed, what indeed it was, a very nest of English comfort. The windows opened on a large old-fashioned garden, full of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, roses, honeysuckles and pinks; and that again led into a grassy orchard, abounding with fruit-trees. What a playground was that orchard! and what playfellows were mine! Nancy [her maid], with her trim prettiness, my own dear father, handsomest and cheerfullest of men, and the great Newfoundland dog, Coe, who used to lie down at my feet, as if to invite me to mount him, and then to prance off with his burthen, as if he enjoyed the fun as much as we did. Most undoubtedly I was a spoilt child. When I recollect certain passages of my thrice-happy early life, I cannot have the slightest doubt about the matter, although it contradicts all foregone conclusions, all nursery and schoolroom morality, to say so. But facts are stubborn things. Spoilt I was. Everybody spoilt me—most of all the person whose power in that way was greatest: the dear papa himself. Not content with spoiling me indoors, he spoilt me out. How well I remember his carrying me round the orchard on his shoulder, holding fast my little three-year-old feet, whilst the little hands hung on to his pig-tail, which I called my bridle (those were days of pig-tails), hung so fast, and tugged so heartily, that sometimes the ribbon would come off between my fingers, and send his hair floating and the powder flying down his back. That climax of mischief was the crowning joy of all. I can hear our shouts of laughter now.”

A pretty picture this, and one to which, as she wrote of it, the tired old woman looked back as on one of the few oases in a life which, despite certain successes, was nothing short of a desert of weariness and of struggle with poverty.

But apart from this boisterous love of play, the little girl early developed a passion for reading, fostered and encouraged, no doubt, by that “grave home-loving mother,” who “never in her life read any book but devotion,” in whose room, indeed, it was matter for astonished comment to find the works of Spenser.

At the age of three, little Mary showed a remarkable precocity of intellect, and even before she had reached that early age her father was accustomed to perch her on the breakfast-table to exhibit her one accomplishment to admiring guests, “who admired all the more, because, a small puny child, looking far younger than I really was, nicely dressed, as only children generally are, and gifted with an affluence of curls, I might have passed for the twin sister of my own great doll.”

On such occasions she would be given one or other of the Whig newspapers of the day—the Courier or Morning Chronicle—and, to the delight of her father and the wonder of the guests, would prattle forth the high-seasoned political pronouncements with which those journals were filled.

Following this display there was, of course, reward; not with sweetmeats, however, “too plentiful in my case to be very greatly cared for,” but by the reading of the “Children in the Wood” by mother from Percy’s Reliques, “and I looked for my favourite ballad after every performance, just as the piping bullfinch that hung in the window looked for his lump of sugar after going through ‘God save the King.’ The two cases were exactly parallel.”

But one day “the dear mamma” was absent and could not administer the customary reward, with the result that papa had to read the “Children in the Wood,” though not before he had searched the shelves to find the, to him, unfamiliar volumes. Following which search and labour he was easily constrained by the petted child to hand over the book to Nancy, that she might read extracts whenever called upon. And when Nancy, as was inevitable, waxed weary of the “Children in the Wood,” she gradually took to reading other of the ballads; “and as from three years old I grew to be four or five, I learned to read them myself, and the book became the delight of my childhood, as it is now the solace of my age.”

Mary Russell Mitford at the age of three.
(From a Miniature.)

With a child so apt it is not surprising that we find no record of a governess or tutor during these early years—that is, so far as general education was concerned; but there was one item of special education which the fond papa did insist upon, an insistence which was the cause of much grief to and some disobedience from the spoilt girl.

“How my father, who certainly never knew the tune of ‘God save the King’ from that of the other national air, ‘Rule, Britannia,’ came to take into his head so strong a fancy to make me an accomplished musician I could never rightly understand, but that such a fancy did possess him I found to my sorrow! From the day I was five years old, he stuck me up to the piano, and, although teacher after teacher had discovered that I had neither ear, nor taste, nor application, he continued, fully bent upon my learning it.”

Nevertheless, she did not learn it and, as we shall see later, this fixed idea of her father’s gave place to another equally futile.

Chief of her playmates at this time was William Harness, the son of her mother’s trustee. He would be brought over from Wickham in the morning, and after a day of romps, be taken back in his father’s carriage late in the afternoon. Although two years the junior of Mary, William was her constant and boon companion, and remained to be her friend and counsellor through life, although his counsels were, at times, very wilfully disregarded.

Mutually genial of temperament, they sympathized with each other’s tastes and pursuits, particularly as these related to Literature and the Drama. On one point only did they disagree, and its subject was “dear papa.” By a sort of intuition the boy must have, even in those early days, come to regard the handsome, bluff, genial, loud-voiced surgeon with something akin to suspicion, a suspicion which was maintained and fully justified in the years to come.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Then also Dean of Exeter and, subsequently, Bishop of that Diocese.

[2] Derived from the situation of the Castle keep, which lies between the fords of the river Wansbeck, Northumberland.

[3] Many years afterwards, when appointed to the See of Winchester, the late Bishop Thorold alluded to it as one of a number of Town-Villages which he said he found so peculiarly distinctive a feature of Hampshire.

CHAPTER II
LYME REGIS AND TRAGEDY’S SHADOW

The picture, given us by Miss Mitford herself, of those early days in the Hampshire home, is one from the contemplation of which we are loth to drag ourselves.

Again and again in her Recollections we note how the memory was drawn upon to conjure up some pleasant scene from the past. Of the town itself her vision is of “a picturesque country church with yews and lindens on one side, and beyond, a down as smooth as velvet, dotted with rich islands of coppice, hazel, woodbine, hawthorn and holly reaching up into the young oaks, and overhanging flowery patches of primroses, wood-sorrel, wild hyacinths, and wild strawberries. On the side opposite the church in a hollow fringed with alders and bulrushes, gleamed the bright clear lakelet, radiant with swans and water-lilies, which the simple townsfolk were content to call the Great Pond.”

Fortunately for us the hand of Time has touched this old town gently. It is true the picturesque country church has, by sheer force of decay begotten of a hoary antiquity, given place to one not less picturesque on the old site; but the peaceful aspect of the streets and inns remains, together with that commodious house in the Broad Street which, excepting one slight internal alteration, differs in nothing from the house which Miss Mitford knew in her childhood, the place of her birth.

With steep-pitched roof and painted front, its old dormer-windows look out with a certain grave dignity befitting the windows of a house which enshrines such a tender memory, on the town “through whose streets streamed Cavaliers and Roundheads after the battle of Cheriton,” on the downs where, a full hundred and twenty years ago, the little mistress was wont fearlessly to ride on her father’s favourite blood-mare, seated on a specially-contrived pad and enclosed so fondly by that same father’s strong and loving arm.

Specially privileged and greatly esteeming the privilege, we have wandered through the rooms of this house; seen the breakfast room round which were ranged the books of Grandpa Russell’s library; seen the curiously contrived sash-window—the like of which we have never seen in any house before or since—fashioned so cunningly that its entire height slides upward into a recess quite out of sight; stepped through the opening thus made on to the flagged pathway leading by quaint outbuildings and stable to the garden and orchard beyond, where, as we have already noted, took place those dashing rides on a human mount, with a powdered, beribboned pig-tail in lieu of reins.

Small wonder is it that we looked on these things with something akin to reverence, and certainly with pity in our heart as we recalled how shamefully those idyllic days were to end.

With a strong preference for country sports and occupations, with a gay and careless temper which all the professional etiquette of the world could never tame into the staid gravity proper to a doctor of medicine, and with that insidious canker, the love of gambling, slowly devouring any manliness he may have possessed, Dr. Mitford gradually frittered away the whole of his wife’s fortune, save a matter of £3,500 in the funds, which, being in the hands of trustees, was beyond his reach. Generous to a degree, and with a blind confidence and belief in her husband’s affection, Mrs. Mitford would not permit any part of her property to be settled on herself, and was therefore, to some extent, to blame for the catastrophe which followed.

Thus, in a few short years of married life—at the most nine—we find this professional man forced to sell furniture and portions of his library in order to meet current expenses and ease the clamours of his creditors; forced, indeed, from very shame, to quit the self-contained and therefore intolerant town where bitter tongues were wagging and scornful fingers pointing, and to take up a residence in a distant seaside town, where, if he ever hoped to retrench and reform, and had he but given the matter a moment’s consideration, he was scarcely likely to achieve his object.

It was to Lyme Regis they went—this unduly optimistic, noisy, sportsman-practitioner, with his uncomplaining still trustful wife and their six-year-old daughter, wide-eyed and wondering why this sudden flight. The true import of this removal was not to be hidden from this remarkably intuitive child. “In that old, historical town,” she writes in one of her reminiscent moods, “that old town so finely placed on the very line where Dorsetshire and Devonshire meet, I spent the eventful year when the careless happiness of childhood vanished, and the troubles of the world first dimly dawned upon my heart—felt in its effects rather than known—felt in its chilling gloom, as we feel the shadow of a cloud that passes over the sun on an April day.” Strangely-sad words these, expressing the thoughts of a child at an age when, not strong enough to help and too young to be confided in, it can do nothing but mark the change, questioning the mother’s furtive tear while, rendered more sensitive by reason of its own impotence, it shudders in the cold atmosphere of vague yet ill-concealed suspicion and mistrust.

Yet, mark the improvidence of this unstable man; the house he took in Lyme Regis was, “as commonly happens to people whose fortunes are declining, far more splendid than that we had inhabited, indeed the very best in the town.”

The house still stands with its “great extent of frontage, terminating by large gates surmounted by spread eagles.” It is now known as “The Retreat,” and is in the Broad Street of Lyme, proudly pointed to by the inhabitants as the house once rented by the great Lord Chatham for the benefit of his son’s—William Pitt’s—health, and, twenty years later, by the Mitford family.

Lyme Regis is the embodiment of much that is interesting, historically and politically, but particularly to us by reason of its literary associations. Of “The Retreat” we have, fortunately, a description written by Miss Mitford herself.

“An old stone porch, with benches on either side, projected from the centre, covered as was the whole front of the house, with tall, spreading, wide-leaved myrtle, abounding in blossom, with moss-roses, jessamine, and passion-flowers. Behind the building, extended round a paved quadrangle, was the drawing-room, a splendid apartment, looking upon a little lawn surrounded by choice evergreens, the bay, the cedar and the arbutus, and terminated by an old-fashioned greenhouse and a filbert-tree walk. In the steep declivity of the central garden was a grotto, over-arching a cool, sparkling spring, whilst the slopes on either side were carpeted with strawberries and dotted with fruit trees. One drooping medlar, beneath whose branches I have often hidden, I remember well.”

This great house, with its large and lofty rooms, its noble oaken staircases, its marble hall, long galleries and corridors, was scarcely the house which a man anxious to mark time in an unpretentious fashion was likely to choose. Nor, had he stopped for one moment to consider, would he have chosen Lyme Regis as a retreat, for it was then practically at the height of its fashionable prosperity, with its gay Assembly Rooms, the resort of those on whom Bath and Brighthelmstone were beginning to pall, and who were henceforth to divide their patronage between this Dorsetshire rendezvous and that other, just awakened, resort still further westward round the coast and destined, in the slow course of a century, to become the imperiously aristocratic Torquay.

No, indeed! this was no move the wisdom of which was calculated to inspire in the breast of Harness, the trustee, any restoration of confidence, for those long galleries and corridors were, quite naturally, “echoing from morning to night with gay visitors, cousins from the North, and the ever-shifting company of the watering-place.”

It was a strange place wherein a laughter-loving child should be sad. “Yet sad I was,” she says. “Nobody told me, but I felt, I knew, I had an interior conviction, for which I could not have accounted, that, in the midst of all this natural beauty and apparent happiness, in spite of the company, in spite of the gaiety, something was wrong. It was such a foreshowing as makes the quicksilver in the barometer sink whilst the weather is still bright and clear.”

How pitiful it all seems! how strangely pathetic when, side by side with that description of the insistent shadow, we set the written indictment of him who was the cause of all the trouble—pathetic because, though an indictment, it is done so gently and breathes the very spirit of forgiveness.

“Then ... he attempted to increase his resources by the aid of cards, (he was, unluckily, one of the finest whist-players in England), or by that other terrible gambling, which assumes so many forms, and bears so many names, but which even when called by its milder term of Speculation, is that terrible thing gambling still; whatever might be the manner of the loss—or whether, as afterwards happened, his own large-hearted hospitality and too-confiding temper were alone to blame—for the detail was never known to me, nor do I think it was known to my mother; he did not tell and we could not ask. How often, in after-life, has that sanguine spirit, which clung to him to his last hour, made me tremble and shiver.”

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.

Dr. Mitford had gone before, leaving the little party to travel post in a hack chaise. The journey was full of discomfort to the distressed women. At Dorchester, where they had hoped to stay the night, they found the town so full of soldiers, breaking camp, that there was no accommodation for them, nor was there chaise or horses wherewith to pursue the journey. Finally, after searching all over the place, they were able to obtain a lift in a rough tilted cart without springs which bumped and jolted them over eight rough miles to a small place whence they might hope to proceed in the morning.

“It was my mother’s first touch of poverty; it seemed like a final parting from all the elegances and all the accommodations to which she had been used. I never shall forget her heart-broken look when she took her little girl upon her lap in that jolting caravan, nor how the tears stood in her eyes when we were turned altogether into our miserable bed-room when we reached the roadside ale-house where we were to pass the night, and found ourselves, instead of the tea we so much needed, condemned to sup on stale bread and cheese.”

The next day they resumed their journey, and at length reached a dingy comfortless lodging on the Surrey side of Blackfriars Bridge, where, with the cause of all the trouble, they found a refuge from pressing creditors within the rules of the King’s Bench. Here, like a certain historic figure whose exploits were to be inimitably recorded later, Dr. Mitford waited for something to turn up, beguiling the time by visits to Guy’s Hospital, where his friend and fellow-pupil, Dr. Babington, was one of the physicians, and by performing odd jobs for, and being generally useful to the notorious “Dr. Graham”—a famous quack who throve amazingly at the expense of a gullible and doubtless sensually-minded public.[5]

With her fortune gone and with only the tattered but eloquent remnants of respectability left to her, can we wonder that the educated and refined daughter of an eminent divine should wear a heart-broken look and weep bitter tears? Her spirit was broken, and even Hope seemed to have deserted her!

FOOTNOTES:

[4] The only two entries in the rate-books of Alresford, relating to payments made by “George Mitford—Surgeon,” are, under an assessment at 9d. in the pound, made in 1787—7s.; and, under an assessment at 4½d. in the pound, made in 1790—5s.

[5] Dr. Graham’s “Celestial Bed” for sterile couples is numbered among the astounding frauds of the early nineteenth century. To his “Temple”—first in the Adelphi and later, as he grew wealthy and more daring, to Schomberg House in Pall Mall—there thronged a heterogeneous mass of people, some taking him and his nostrums seriously, while others—the bulk, it is suggested—paid large sums for admission to view Emma Lyon, afterwards Lady Hamilton, pose, in scant drapery, as the Goddess of Hygiene. Not the least of this charlatan’s astounding achievements are his obscene and blasphemous pamphlets on the most delicate subjects, which he circulated broadcast among the class to which he knew they would appeal.

CHAPTER III
READING AND SCHOOL DAYS AT CHELSEA

Dr. Mitford’s spirit was a sanguine one; he could not believe that Dame Fortune intended to frown on him and his for ever. With much to commend it in a general way, the possession of such a spirit may yet be a menace, a positive danger. To a man of Dr. Mitford’s character it was a danger. It led him into the rashest of speculations; it launched him upon the wildest of wild schemes and left him, nearly always, a loser.

On one occasion, however, Fortune smiled on him in so dramatic a fashion that thereafter his belief in himself could never be shaken.

It happened some long time after the family had been settled in the dingy London apartments and, in accordance with his usual practice, the Doctor had taken his little daughter to walk about London—a never-failing source of delight to her, both then and in later life.

“One day”—her own description of the event is so expressive and circumstantial—“he took me into a not very tempting-looking place, which was, as I speedily found, a lottery-office. It was my birthday, and I was ten years old. An Irish lottery was upon the point of being drawn, and he desired me to choose one out of several bits of printed paper (I did not then know their significance) that lay upon the counter.

“‘Choose which number you like best,’ said the dear papa, ‘and that shall be your birthday present.’

“I immediately selected one, and put it into his hand; No. 2,224.

“‘Ah!’ said my father, examining it, ‘you must choose again. I want to buy a whole ticket; and this is only a quarter. Choose again, my pet.’

“‘No, dear papa, I like this one best.’

“‘Here is the next number,’ interposed the lottery-office keeper, ‘No. 2,223.’

“‘Ay,’ said my father, ‘that will do just as well. Will it not, Mary? We’ll take that.’

“‘No!’ returned I obstinately; ‘that won’t do. This is my birthday, you know, papa, and I am ten years old. Cast up my number, and you’ll find that makes ten. The other is only nine.’

“My father, superstitious like all speculators, struck with my pertinacity and with the reason I gave, which he liked none the less because the ground of preference was tolerably unreasonable, resisted the attempt of the office-keeper to tempt me by different tickets, and we had nearly left the shop without a purchase, when the clerk, who had been examining different desks and drawers, said to his principal:—

“‘I think, sir, the matter may be managed if the gentleman does not mind paying a few shillings more. That ticket, 2,224, only came yesterday, and we have still all the shares: one half, one quarter, one eighth, two sixteenths. It will be just the same if the young lady is set upon it.’

“The young lady was set upon it, and the shares were purchased.

“‘The whole affair was a secret between us, and my father, whenever he got me to himself, talked over our future twenty thousand pounds—just like Alnaschar over his basket of eggs.

“Meanwhile time passed on, and one Sunday morning a face that I had forgotten, but my father had not, made its appearance. It was the clerk of the lottery-office. An express had just arrived from Dublin, announcing that No. 2,224 had been drawn a prize of twenty thousand pounds, and he had hastened to communicate the good news.”

Twenty thousand pounds! Dame Fortune was indeed rewarding the optimist. Dr. Mitford was nothing if not magnanimous, and although he had presented the lottery ticket as a birthday present to his daughter, and although it was due to her persistence only that the winning number, 2,224, had been chosen, he at once claimed the success as his own, and, when informing his friends, added that he should settle the whole amount on his daughter.

No trace of any such settlement can be discovered; if it was made it was speedily annulled and in the course of a very few years it had been all squandered in the Doctor’s own reckless fashion.

“Ah, me!” reflects Miss Mitford. “In less than twenty years what was left of the produce of the ticket so strangely chosen? What? except a Wedgwood dinner-service that my father had made to commemorate the event with the Irish harp within the border on one side, and his family crest on the other!”

The infinite possibilities of twenty thousand pounds were not lost on the Doctor. Forthwith he moved with his wife, child and few belongings to Reading, then a fairly prosperous and eminently respectable town, swarming “with single ladies of that despised denomination which is commonly known by the title of old maids.”

At the period of which we are now writing its commerce was practically confined to trading in the products of the rural districts surrounding it—principally in malt, corn and flour. Being on the direct coach-road from London to the West of England, it was, naturally, a great and important centre for the carrying trade, as witness whereof the many quaint old inns still standing. An air of prosperity pervaded the streets, for the ancient borough was just beginning to rouse itself from the lethargy into which it had drifted when its staple trade, the manufacture of cloth, dwindled and died scarcely a century before.

“Clean, airy, orderly and affluent; well paved, well lighted, well watched; abounding in wide and spacious streets, filled with excellent shops and handsome houses,” is Miss Mitford’s description of it, and she might have added that it was once again comporting itself in the grand manner as was proper to a town whose origin is lost in the mists of antiquity, but whose records, from the twelfth century at least, are records of great doings of both Church and State.

In Miss Mitford’s day there were still many picturesque examples of fifteenth-century domestic architecture bordering the streets, while the ruined magnificence of the Great Abbey, with its regal tomb of Henry I before the High Altar, lent it a touch of dignity the like of which few other provincial towns could assume.

The move from London to Reading took place in 1797, and the house they inhabited was a new and handsome red-brick structure on the London Road, fortunately still standing, and now known as “Kendrick View.” Here, with his phaeton, his spaniels and greyhounds, Dr. Mitford proceeded to enjoy himself with, apparently, no regard whatever for the future. The swarms of old maids excelled in arranging card-parties to which, by inviting the wives, they managed to secure the presence and company of the husbands. At these parties the Doctor was an ever-welcome guest, for, as we have already noted, he was one of the finest whist-players of his time. Everything he did was performed on a lavish scale. His greyhounds, for instance, were the best that money could procure—no coursing meeting either in the neighbourhood or the country for many miles round was considered complete unless the Mitford kennel was represented, nor, as the Doctor was impatient of defeat, did he consider the meeting a success unless the Mitford kennel carried all before it.

Meanwhile, and when not engaged in the mild excitements of cribbage and quadrille, Mrs. Mitford paced the garden at the rear of the house, “in contented, or at least uncomplaining, solitude,” for even now, she could never be certain whether, at any moment, the hazardous life her husband was leading might not plunge them once again into a miserable poverty; “a complaining woman uncomplaining.”

Their daughter’s education now became a matter of moment, for she was in her eleventh year. Accordingly, she was entered as a boarder at the school kept by M. St. Quintin, a French émigré, at 22, Hans Place, Sloane Street, then almost surrounded by fields, and even now, although much altered, a pleasant enough situation.

“Kendrick View,” Reading, where the Mitfords lived, 1797-1805

M. St. Quintin and his wife enjoyed a reputation of no ordinary character, and before venturing on the Hans Place establishment had built up a good connection and secured an equally good name, in the conduct of the Abbey School at Reading in a house adjoining what is known to have been the Inner Gateway of the famous Abbey. In this Abbey School—though not under the tuition of Monsieur and Madame St. Quintin—Jane Austen received much of her education, as did also another famous author, Mrs. Sherwood.

Their reputation in Reading was, doubtless, the deciding factor in favour of sending Mary Mitford to them in London, and that the decision was a happy one there can be no question.

Little Mary, from her very early years, had not enjoyed the best of health. As is common with precocious children, she was somewhat scrofulous; coupled with this she was further disadvantaged by being short and fat. Nor was she pretty. Her portrait, painted when she was three years old, while it depicts an intelligent face, shows nothing of the beauty usual in children of that age. On the other hand, we have it on the authority of those who knew her well, that whatever defects of form and feature she may have suffered were amply compensated by the winsome smile, the gentle temper, keen appreciation of life and all it had to give, and by the silver-toned voice, all of which endeared her to those who came under the spell of her personality.

She was essentially the child of her parents, combining the quiet acquiescent nature of her mother with all the optimistic characteristics of her father; and although, happily, she never gave evidence of emulating her father in his selfishness or those other worse attributes of character which he sometimes displayed, the fact has to be recorded that, occasionally, here and there, among the originals of her letters to her father is to be detected a certain coarseness of thought and expression which go to prove that even she was not altogether proof against the influence of this unwise parent.

Monsieur St. Quintin’s establishment was well calculated to interest the observant child, and of her schoolmaster and his associates she has given us an amusing and picturesque description.

“He had been secretary to the Comte de Moustiers, one of the last Ambassadors, if not the very last, from Louis Seize to the Court of St. James’s. Of course he knew many emigrants of the highest rank, and, indeed, of all ranks; and being a lively, kind-hearted man, with a liberal hand and a social temper, it was his delight to assemble as many as he could of his poor countrymen and countrywomen around his hospitable supper-table. Something wonderful and admirable it was to see how these Dukes and Duchesses, Marshals and Marquises, Chevaliers and Bishops, bore up under their unparalleled reverses! How they laughed and talked, and squabbled, and flirted,—constant to their high heels, their rouge, and their furbelows, to their old liaisons, their polished sarcasms, their cherished rivalries! For the most part, these noble exiles had a trifling pecuniary dependency; some had brought with them jewels enough to sustain them in their simple lodgings in Knightsbridge or Pentonville; to some a faithful steward contrived to forward the produce of some estate, too small to have been seized by the early plunderers; to others a rich English friend would claim the privilege of returning the kindness and hospitality of by-gone years.”

Many of them eked out a precarious living by teaching languages, fencing, dancing and music; while some, like Monsieur St. Quintin, were fortunate in being able to found and carry on an educational establishment on a somewhat large scale.

Although shy and awkward, home-sick and lonely, little Mary soon found much in the Hans Place establishment to interest and amuse her. Like all other similar establishments, it contained an element of exclusiveness fostered by the snobbish half-dozen great girls who, being “only gentlemen’s daughters, had no earthly right to give themselves airs.” These the little country girl did not take seriously enough to give her cause for trouble. But she noticed them, nevertheless, and watched with youthful contempt their successful attempts to ostracize other less-favoured girls than themselves. Her memories of such incidents are epitomized very charmingly in her Recollections, wherein she records the pathetic story of Mademoiselle Rose, and the triumph over her tormentors of the neglected, snubbed and shy poor Betsy. It reads almost like a “moral tale,” but is saved from the general mediocrity of such effusions by its honest ring of indignation, of sweet girlish sympathy with the suffering of her fellow-pupil and governess, and of denunciation of the thoughtless ones.

Mademoiselle Rose was the granddaughter of an aged couple among the émigrés who gathered at Madame St. Quintin’s supper parties. They bore noted names of Brittany and had possessed large estates, but now having lost these and their two sons and been driven from their country, they were dependent on the charity of others, and on what their granddaughter Rose could earn by straw-plaiting to make into the fancy bonnets then in vogue. Mademoiselle Rose deserves to live in our minds, she was so brave. “Rose!” says Miss Mitford; “what a name for that pallid drooping creature, whose dark eyes looked too large for her face, whose bones seemed starting through her skin, and whose black hair contrasted even fearfully with the wan complexion from which every tinge of healthful colour had flown!” Even when she accompanied her grandparents to the supper parties she always brought her work, and rarely put it down during the whole evening, so ceaseless was the toil by which she laboured to support the aged couple now cast upon her duty and her affection.

At length it became necessary to find some other means of income apart from the straw-plaiting, and so Mademoiselle Rose was installed as a governess in the St. Quintin establishment, “working as indefatigably through our verbs and over our exercises as she had before done through the rattle of the tric-trac[6] table and the ceaseless chatter of French talk,” now and again putting in a word for her straw-plaits which in these new circumstances had to be made during a scanty leisure, and her insistent desire for the sale of which she made no effort to conceal.

At this juncture arrived Betsy, a child of nine, the daughter of a cheese-merchant in the Borough, and therefore considered as fair game by the vulgar and vain daughters of gentlemen. She came with her father, who although he stayed but five minutes, was so typical a John Bull in voice and bearing that the elegant French dancing-master who received him shrugged himself almost out of his clothes with ill-concealed disgust. “I rather liked the man,” says Miss Mitford; “there was so much character about him, and, in spite of the coarseness, so much that was bold and hearty.”

The disgust of the dancing-master was not lost upon him, for his parting injunction to the mistress of the establishment was “to take care that no grinning Frenchman had the ordering of his Betsy’s feet. If she must learn to dance, let her be taught by an honest Englishman.”

The conduct of both parent and dancing-master was a cue indeed for the gentlemen’s daughters, of which they quickly took advantage, to the great discomfort of poor Betsy, who, discarding Mary Mitford’s advances, sought and found silent comfort with Mademoiselle Rose. It was only silent comfort she obtained, the comfort of suffering souls in sympathy with each other, for neither knew the other’s language, and the only solace they obtained was in working together over the straw-plaits, in which Betsy quickly became adept. By some means the child was made aware of Mademoiselle Rose’s story, which had then become more poignant by reason of the fact that, although an opportunity had presented itself, by arrangement with the First Consul, for the re-admission of her grandparents to France and possibly for the ultimate recovery of some of their property, it could not be grasped, as they were all too poor to bear the expense. So poor Rose sighed over her straw-plaits, and submitted. Shortly afterwards Betsy was summoned home and begged permission to take one of Rose’s bonnets to show her aunt, with a view to purchase, a request which was granted. Two hours later Betsy reappeared in the schoolroom together with her father. The scene which ensued must be told in Miss Mitford’s own words.

“‘Ma’amselle,’ said he, bawling as loud as he could, with the view, as we afterwards conjectured, of making her understand him—‘Ma’amselle, I have no great love for the French, whom I take to be our natural enemies. But you’re a good young woman; you’ve been kind to my Betsy, and have taught her how to make your fallals; and, moreover, you’re a good daughter, and so’s my Betsy. She says that she thinks you’re fretting because you can’t manage to take your grandfather and grandmother back to France again; so, as you let her help you in that other handiwork, why you must let her help you in this.’ Then throwing a heavy purse into her lap, catching his little daughter up in his arms, and hugging her to the honest breast where she hid her tears and her blushes, he departed, leaving poor Mdlle. Rose too much bewildered to speak, or to comprehend the happiness that had fallen upon her, and the whole school the better for the lesson.”

FOOTNOTES:

[6] A game resembling backgammon.

CHAPTER IV
SCHOOLDAYS AND MISS ROWDEN’S INFLUENCE

In both the conduct of his establishment and its curriculum, M. St. Quintin was very thorough, and no doubt it was to this quality that he owed the large measure of his success as a schoolmaster. He himself taught the pupils French, history, geography, and a smattering of science, the scope of which was limited for the very obvious reason that the tutor knew little of the subject. He was ably seconded by Miss Rowden, the Fanny Rowden who subsequently endeared herself greatly to her precocious pupil and, in course of time, succeeded M. St. Quintin, upon his retirement, as mistress of the school. She was responsible for the general course of study, being assisted by special finishing masters for Italian, music, dancing and drawing. In all of these, save that of music, Mary Mitford became a proficient pupil, so proficient indeed that she often nonplussed her teachers by her intelligent questionings.

“Our treasure,” wrote Mrs. Mitford to her husband whilst she was on a short visit to the school, “was much amused yesterday morning. In her astronomical lecture, she not only completely posed Miss Rowden, but M. St. Quintin himself could not reconcile a contradiction which she had discovered in the author they were perusing. You cannot have an idea of the gratification the dear little rogue feels in puzzling her instructors.”

In the month previous to this she had again successfully carried the day against her tutor in an English composition of which the subject was “The Advantage of a Well-educated Mind.” In examining this M. St. Quintin observed a word which struck him as needless, and he was about to erase it when the pupil in her pretty, meek way, an artless manner of which she seems to have made good use in her childhood, urged that it should be left standing. The tutor was immediately perplexed and appealed to Miss Rowden, who gave judgment in favour of the pupil, suggesting that in the event of the disputed participle being dismissed, the whole sentence would need complete alteration. On a more deliberate view of the subject, St. Quintin agreed to the retention of the word and “with all the liberality which is so amiable a point in his character, begged our daughter’s pardon,” wrote the proud mother.

The year 1802 found her the winner of the prize for both French and English composition, and so keen was her desire for knowledge that two months later she wrote home to her mother the information: “I have just taken a lesson in Latin; but I shall, in consequence, omit some of my other business. It is so extremely like Italian, that I think I shall find it much easier than I expected.” For this, Miss Rowden was immediately responsible, so emulous was the child of her governess; indeed, Miss Rowden’s influence on the little girl was undoubtedly far-reaching and must have laid the foundation of all her love for literature which was so marked a characteristic of Miss Mitford’s life. Truly, Miss Rowden had in the child a wonderfully receptive soil in which to plant the seeds of learning—we must not forget the early precocious years and their association with Percy’s Reliques and kindred mental exercises—but she was a wise woman, and fostered and encouraged her pupil to an extent which would demand a tribute of praise from the most superficial historian of Miss Mitford’s life. The fact that Miss Rowden was at this time diligently reading Virgil was sufficient stimulus to her pupil to study to the same end, hence the letter home announcing her decision. On this occasion it would appear that Mrs. Mitford entertained a doubt as to the wisdom of the proposal, and consulted her husband, with the result that a letter on the subject was forthwith despatched to Hans Place.

“Your mother and myself,” wrote the Doctor, “have had much conversation concerning the utility of your learning Latin, and we both agree that it is perfectly unnecessary, and would occasion you additional trouble. It would occupy more of your time than you could conveniently appropriate to it; and we are more than satisfied with your application and proficiency in everything.”

In this, as in most other matters at this period of her life, the child had her own way, and the Latin lessons were continued—advantageously, as the sequel will show.

On the whole, her life at Hans Place was of the happiest, although, of course, the early days were touched with the miseries of home-sickness which are the common lot of all children in similar circumstances.

“I was scarcely less happy,” she wrote in the after years, “in the great London school than at home; to tell the truth, I was well nigh as much spoilt in one place as in the other; but as I was a quiet and orderly little girl, and fell easily into the rules of the house, there was no great harm done, either to me or to the school discipline.”

Nevertheless, there is a lonely touch in one of her early letters home from Hans Place. It is dated September 15, 1799, and after thanking the dear papa for certain parcels just received, goes on to state: “My uncle called on me twice while he stayed in London, but he went away in five minutes both times. He said that he only went to fetch my aunt, and would certainly take me out when he returned. I hope that I may be wrong in my opinion of my aunt; but I again repeat, I think she has the most hypocritical drawl I have ever heard. Pray, my dearest papa, come soon to see me. I am quite miserable without you, and have a thousand things to say to you.”

A year later—November 30, 1800—she wrote exuberantly in her pocket book: “Where shall I be this day month? At home! How happy I shall be, and shall be ready to jump out of my skin for joy.”

Of her inability to master music, due to her absolute lack of taste for it, we have already spoken. Her first attempts were made on the piano at the age of five, and so determined was her father in the matter that, waiving all objections, he insisted on her continuing to practise right up to the date of her removal to the school in Hans Place and for some years after.

The music-master at Hans Place was Mr. Hook, the father of Theodore Hook, and a composer of songs for the Vauxhall Gardens. He was, so we learn, an instructor of average ability, smooth-faced, good-natured and kindly, but although these commended him to Miss Mitford they aroused no enthusiasm in her for his art. So he, like many others who had preceded him in the thankless task of trying to teach little Mary her notes, was promptly told by the hasty father—who, unlike his daughter, was not struck by Mr. Hook’s appearance or manner—that he was no good and must be replaced by some one more competent. This some one promptly appeared in the person of Herr Schuberl, at that time engaged in the special tuition of two of Mary’s schoolfellows. He was an impatient, irritable, but undoubtedly able man, and before long amply avenged Mr. Hook, by refusing to have anything more to do with the impossible pupil.

This dismissal was, of course, hailed by the child with great glee, for she began to entertain the hope that the incident would put a stop for ever to the attempts being made in regard to her musical education. But her joy was short-lived; her father was too pertinacious to be so easily turned from his purpose, and believing that the failure of his child was due to incompetent teachers and to his own choice of instrument, he decreed that she must learn the harp.

Apart from any other consideration, this decision had an advantage in that it was supposed to afford the child an opportunity of learning what was then designated as an “elegant accomplishment.” So, a harp was installed at the school, being placed for the convenience of the tutor and pupil in the principal reception-room, an apartment connected with the entrance-hall by a long passage and two double doors, the outer pair of which were covered in green-baize and swung to with a resounding bang when let go by the person who had opened them.

Being a reception-room, it was handsomely fitted up with shelves upon which reposed a number of nicely-bound books, chiefly of French plays and classics. To this room was the unwilling pupil sent each morning to practise alone the exercises previously set her by the “demure little Miss Essex,” the new music mistress; “sent alone, most comfortably out of sight and hearing of every individual in the house.”

But there was little of harp-practice, for before long “I betook myself to the book-shelves, and seeing a row of octavo volumes lettered Théâtre de Voltaire, I selected one of them and had deposited it in front of the music-stand, and perched myself upon the stool to read it in less time than an ordinary pupil would have consumed in getting through the first three bars of ‘Ar Hyd y Nos.’ The play upon which I opened was ‘Zaïre.’ ‘Zaïre’ is not ‘Richard the Third,’ any more than M. de Voltaire is Shakespeare: nevertheless, the play has its merits. I proceeded to other plays—‘Œdipe,’ ‘Mérope,’ ‘Alzire,’ ‘Mahomet,’ plays well worth reading, but not so absorbing as to prevent my giving due attention to the warning doors, and putting the book in its place, and striking the chords of ‘Ar Hyd y Nos’ as often as I heard a step approaching; or gathering up myself and my music, and walking quietly back to the school-room as soon as the hour for practice had expired.”

All of which was, of course, very naughty, and scarcely what the dear papa, blissfully ignorant away in Reading, would have desired! But worse was to follow. In time Voltaire was exhausted, and, hunting along the shelves, the omnivorous Miss came upon the comedies of Molière, which plunged her at once into the gaieties of his delightful world, blotting out all thought of present things—harp, music-books, and lessons—and even demure little Miss Essex vanished into thin air along with “Ar Hyd y Nos.” Fascinated by the tribulations of “Sganarelle” or the lessons of the “Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” she was at length caught by none other than M. St. Quintin, who found her laughing till she cried over the apostrophes of the angry father to the galley in which he is told his son has been taken captive. “Que diable alloit-il faire dans cette galère!” an apostrophe which, as she quaintly wrote, “comes true with regard to somebody in a scrape during every moment of every day, and was never more applicable than to myself at that instant.”

M. St. Quintin could not chide, for, apart from his own adoration of Molière, an adoration he did not extend to music, he was convinced that no proficiency in any art could be gained without natural qualifications and sincere goodwill. So he joined in the tearful laughter, and when he could compose himself, complimented rather than rebuked the pupil upon her relish for the comic drama. More than this, he spoke plainly to the dear papa, with the result that the harp and Miss Essex went together, that music was henceforth abandoned, and the event crowned with the gift of a cheap edition of Molière for the wayward little maid’s own reading.

These were the foundations skilfully laid and built upon by Miss Rowden. They marked the beginnings of a distinct and strong literary taste and a passion for the Drama which, had she and her father but known at the time, were to furnish and equip her for the stern battle of life in which she was to engage, a battle for the bare necessities of life for herself and the provision of luxuries for the careless and thriftless parent upon whom she doted and spent herself.

In August, 1802—she would then be fifteen years of age—she writes to her father: “I told you that I had finished the Iliad, which I admired beyond anything I ever read. I have now begun the Æneid, which I cannot say I admire so much. Dryden is so fond of triplets and alexandrines, that it is much heavier reading; and though he is reckoned a more harmonious versifier than Pope, some of his lines are so careless that I shall not be sorry when I have finished it. I shall then read the Odyssey. I have already gone through three books, and shall finish it in a fortnight ... I am now reading that beautiful opera of Metastasio, Themistocles; and when I have finished that, I shall read Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. How you would dote on Metastasio; his poetry is really heavenly,” a letter which, apart from the excusable conventional school-girl gush of its closing words, is not only remarkable for its style, but for its display of a critical faculty really astounding in a girl of fifteen.

Later, in the same month, she wrote to her mother: “I am glad my sweet mamma agrees with me with regard to Dryden, as I never liked him as well as Pope. Miss Rowden had never read any translation of Virgil but his, and consequently could not judge of their respective merits. If we can get Wharton’s Æneid, we shall finish it with that. After I have read the Odyssey, I believe I shall read Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I shall be very glad of this, as I think they are extremely beautiful.... I am much flattered, my darlings, by the praises you bestowed on my last letter, though I have not the vanity to think I deserved them. It has ever been my ambition to write like my darlings, though I fear I shall never attain their style.”

A week later, she followed this with another in similar strain: “M. St. Quintin was perfectly delighted with my French on Saturday. Signor Parachiretti is sure that I shall know Italian as well as I do French by Christmas. I know you will not think it is through vanity that I say this, who should not say it; but I well know you like to hear that your darling is doing well, and I consult more your gratification than false modesty in relating it to you. I went to the library the other day with Miss Rowden, and brought back the first volume of Goldsmith’s Animated Nature. It is quite a lady’s natural history, and extremely entertaining. The style is easy and simple, and totally free from technical terms, which are generally the greatest objection to books of that kind. I am likewise reading the Odyssey, which I even prefer to the Iliad. I think it beautiful beyond comparison.”

These few extracts from the letters not only serve to show the singular thirst for knowledge which the child possessed, but also indicate the perfect understanding which existed between the mother and child, resembling, as the Rev. A. G. L’Estrange justly remarks, “those of one sister to another.”

In return Mrs. Mitford retailed all the gossip and news of Reading, giving the eager child the fullest accounts of the dinners and suppers and card-parties which formed a regular interchange of courtesies between neighbours in that town a century ago. These accounts, only intended by the fond mother, as we may properly suppose, to bridge the distance between school and home, were carefully stored away in the wonderful memory of their recipient, there to rest until, many years after, they were revivified and placed on record for all time—as we hope—in the pages of Belford Regis, the work which, quite apart from Our Village, has endeared its writer to all ardent Reading lovers in that it affords them a true and living picture of the ancient borough as it was in the opening years of the nineteenth century.

In regard to this correspondence between the mother and daughter, it has been elsewhere remarked that “no word of advice, moral or religious, is ever mingled,” and the question: “Was this wisdom?” is answered by the querist himself that, ruling out the possibility of carelessness or indifference as the motives which actuated Mrs. Mitford and “knowing what a devoted daughter Mary Mitford became, we may be well induced to believe that her mother’s silence on these more serious arguments originated in deep reflection; and that she had judiciously determined simply to attach and amuse her child by her correspondence, and trusted to the impressive persuasion of her example for the inculcation of higher things.”[7]

With every desire to pay the sincerest tribute to the learned editor in his difficult task, we are inclined to disagree with him as to the wisdom of Mrs. Mitford’s plan. If by “example” we are to understand that the Christian virtues of forbearance with a selfish and overmastering father and fortitude in adversity are intended, then we agree that Mary Russell Mitford well learned her lesson, but—and herein is the basis of our disagreement—had mother and daughter been less content, for the sake of peace, to pander to the every whim and caprice of Dr. Mitford, much, if not all, of the miserable poverty of later years would have been avoided, and the tragedy of Miss Mitford’s life, with its last days of spiritual doubts and fears, been averted. The result on her father’s career may be speculative, but we are inclined to hope that had the two women more boldly asserted their claims to consideration, the good that was in Dr. Mitford and which is to be found in all men, would have been roused, and the cruel selfishness of his life been checked if not altogether effaced.

These letters from home undoubtedly gave the fullest details of the daily occurrences, and must occasionally have tickled the schoolgirl immensely, if we may judge by one of the replies which they evoked.

“I really think,” she wrote, “that my dearly-beloved mother had better have the jack-asses than the horses. The former will at least have the recommendation of singularity, which the other has not; as I am convinced that more than half the smart carriages in the neighbourhood of Reading are drawn by the horses which work in the team,” a reply, the whimsicality of which is only equalled by its pertness, when we remember that the smart carriages alluded to must have been the conveyances of the county gentry whose estates in the neighbourhood and whose lineage were not altogether insignificant. At the same time it is a reply—and for this reason is quoted—which marks the outcropping of that characteristic which Miss Mitford possessed and to which she often gave expression—an abiding distaste for anything approaching snobbery or self-assertion.

We have now come to the year 1802, a red-letter year in the child’s life, inasmuch as its close was to witness the termination of her school career and that it brought to her the news that her father had purchased a house in the country, with land attached, where he intended to set up a small farm as a hobby and, generally, to live the life of a country gentleman. It is certain that the child would receive with pleasure the news of this projected change of residence, for despite the attractions which her school-life in London had for her, the interest she always displayed in matters pertaining to the country, with its free and open life, its close associations with flowers and animals, and its comparative freedom from restraint, could leave no doubt in the minds of those who knew her as to the choice she would make between life in town or country, were such a choice offered her.

Nevertheless, she was undoubtedly happy at Hans Place, enjoying to the full the companionship and affection bestowed upon her by Miss Rowden, and the deference of M. St. Quintin, who regarded her not only as a prodigy but as a distinct credit to his establishment. Nor was this all, for her keen sense of humour and quick perception of the ludicrous side of life, found plenty of scope for their display in a school where the tutors were of mixed nationality and the scholars were drawn from various classes of society.

There is evidence of this in a letter which she wrote, some ten years later, to one of her favourite correspondents, Sir William Elford, wherein she describes a contretemps into which the French governess precipitated herself, mainly through over-zeal in her attempts to correct the untidy habits of her charges and, incidentally, in the hope of discomposing and so scoring off the dancing-master, whom she did not like.

3 Mile † May 10^th 1839
G Mitford
Doctor Mitford.
(From a painting by John Lucas, 1839.)

It was the custom to signalize the break-up of a term by the performance of a Drama such as Hannah More’s “Search after Happiness,” in which Mary Mitford once took the part of Cleora; or by a ballet, on which occasions “the sides of the school-room were fitted up with bowers, in which the little girls who had to dance were seated, and whence they issued at a signal from M. Duval, the dancing-master, attired as sylphs or shepherdesses, to skip or glide through the mazy movements which he had arranged for them, to the music of his kit.” Doubtless the exhibitions proper were carried out with the utmost decorum by all concerned, seeing that a critical public, consisting of fond parents, would be assembled, ready to note, and later to comment upon, any lapse in deportment or manners. It was, however, in the rehearsals that opportunities for fun occurred, and one such occasion forms the basis of the description which we now quote.

“Madame,” was a fine majestic-looking old woman of sixty, but with all the activity of sixteen and the fidgety neatness of a Dutchwoman. She had, for days, been murmuring against the untidy habits of the young ladies, and had threatened to make a terrible example of those who left their belongings lying about.

“A few exercise books found out of place were thrown into the fire, and a few skipping-ropes (one of which had nearly broken Madame’s neck by her falling over it in the dark) thrown out of the window. This was but the gathering of the wind before the storm.” The storm itself broke on the dancing-day and when all the pupils, dressed for the occasion, were assembled in the room. Then, to the consternation of all, Madame appeared and bidding the young ladies follow her, commenced a rummage all over the house.

“Oh! the hats, the tippets, the shoes, the gloves, the books, the music, the playthings, the workthings, that this unlucky search discovered thrown into holes, and corners, and everywhere but where they ought to have been! Well, my dear Sir, all this immense quantity of litter was to be fastened to the person and the dress of the unfortunate little urchin to whom it belonged.”

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.

If we may hazard a guess, we suspect that this purchase afforded the Doctor an outlet for that restlessness which was one of his characteristics, and gave him an opportunity for another prodigal expenditure of money. The scheme was an imposing one. A new site was chosen somewhat further back from the road than that of the older one. The garden was cleared and remodelled—no one could have objected to that, as it was sadly in need of attention—but the old wild hedge, with its delightfully rustic tangle of thorns over which scrambled a profusion of eglantines, honeysuckles and blackberries, had to give place to a severe and imposing piece of park paling, and the garden-space, once so open and affording so expansive a view across country, was converted into a plantation which, while it effectually screened the inhabitants from the gaze of the curious passer-by as effectually obstructed the magnificent outlook which was so pleasant a feature of the place. All this was done that there might be massive gates with a devious carriage-drive up to the door.

From start to finish it was decreed that no expense was to be spared in making the new house something to be wondered at and admired by the County. Thus on April 29, 1802, the first brick was laid with the ceremony due to the illustrious event. Mrs. Mitford, who had been easily persuaded, as indeed was usual, to take the same view as her husband, gave a full account of the proceedings in a letter which she despatched next day to her daughter at Hans Place.

“Yesterday we passed the day at our farm in order to lay the first brick. I insisted on Toney [Miss Mitford’s pet greyhound] being present, and as her dear little mistress was not there, she was to be, as far as she could, your substitute by putting her little paw on the brick which you should have laid had you been present. I trust you will think this was no bad idea. All the bells in Reading were ringing when we left home on this important business; but, not to arrogate too much to ourselves, and to confess the truth, I believe it was Mr. J. Bulley’s generosity which called forth their cheeriest sounds. However, from whatever cause arising, we had the full benefit of the peal.

“We got to our rural retreat about half-past nine, both the men-servants attending us on horseback. At ten o’clock your old Mumpsa [the child’s pet name for her mother] laid the first brick, and placed under it a medal struck in commemoration of the centenary of the Revolution of 1688. Your darling father then placed another for himself, and a third for his beloved treasure, which he made Toney put her foot upon; and after the little rogue had done so, you would have laughed to have seen how she wagged her tail, and nodded her head upon it, as much as to say she was very proud of being admitted to have, not a finger, but a foot, in the business. The men worked merrily on until two o’clock, and then repaired to the public-house, where two legs of mutton, and bread, beer, and potatoes were provided for them. There they enjoyed themselves for the rest of the day, and this morning cheerily resumed their labours.”

Having thus impressed the natives, including the landlord of “The Bell,” with a sense of the importance of the new owner about to come among them, Dr. Mitford completed the business by substituting the name “Bertram House” for that of “Grazeley Court,” the reason for which, did the curiosity of the neighbouring aristocracy cause them to inquire, was to be discovered in the fact that he was a scion of the Mitfords of Bertram Castle, Bertram being the original and ancient name of the family.

Judging by the very scant records of this period at our command, it would appear that the erection of Bertram House, and its completion to Dr. Mitford’s satisfaction, must have occupied nearly four years. This would give Miss Mitford a clear three years of life among the mild excitements which Reading then offered before taking up residence at Grazeley in a district which she was to immortalize—the term surely needs no justification for its use—and in which she was destined, save for a few notable occasions when duty or considerations of health called her away for short periods, to live out her life to the end.

Her introduction to the gaieties of this respectable Borough took place in the August of 1803, when she would be nearly sixteen. The occasion was the annual Race Ball, at which function it was the time-honoured custom of the race-steward to dance with the young ladies then making their début, an ordeal almost as trying to the débutante in those prim and decorous days as a presentation at Court, especially if the steward happened to be a total stranger to her. Writing to her mother, towards the end of her school career and commenting on this, Miss Mitford added—possibly to gain courage from the inditing—“I think myself very fortunate that Mr. Shaw Lefevre[8] will be steward next year, for by that time I shall hope to know him well enough to render the undertaking of dancing with him much less disagreeable.” In this connexion we venture to suggest that on this occasion Mr. Shaw Lefevre would have full hands, when we remember that even at this comparatively early date Miss Mitford’s figure had already assumed generous proportions and that she was short of stature into the bargain.

Naturally enough, the conclusion of school life and the re-commencement of life at home afforded the young girl the fullest opportunities for observing, noting and commenting on persons and events, a pastime in which she delighted. Her pictures of the Reading of her day are notable alike for their quaint fancies as for their fidelity. Her picture of the town—which she disguises under the name of Belford Regis—as viewed from the southern heights of Whitley, is one to which all true lovers of the old town turn with pleasure even to-day.

“About this point,” she says, “is perhaps to be seen the very best view of Belford, with its long ranges of modern buildings in the outskirts, mingled with picturesque old streets; the venerable towers of St. Stephen’s [St. Mary’s] and St. Nicholas [St. Laurence’s]; the light and tapering spire of St. John’s [St. Giles’]; the huge monastic ruins of the abbey; the massive walls of the county gaol; the great river winding along like a thread of silver; trees and gardens mingling amongst all; and the whole landscape enriched and lightened by the dropping elms of the foreground, adding an elusive beauty to the picture, by breaking the too formal outline and veiling just exactly those parts which most require concealment. Nobody can look at Belford from this point, without feeling that it is a very English and very charming scene; and the impression does not diminish on further acquaintance.”

Continuing, she compares the old romantic structures in which our ancestors delighted—now, unhappily, nearly all demolished—with, what she calls, the handsome and uniform buildings which are now the fashion; and she remarks on the rapid growth which the town was then making, “having recently been extended to nearly double its former size.” What would she have said, we wonder, could she have foreseen the Reading of to-day with its palatial polished-granite-fronted business emporiums controlled from the Metropolis by great limited liability companies whose insatiable appetites are devouring, as their policy of grab is choking, the life from the old-time burgesses; burgesses who gloried in their town and whom their town took pleasure in honouring; men whose places are now filled by battalions of shopmen whose fixity of tenure is so doubtful as to preclude them from taking any part or interest, however slight, in the town which shelters them? And, in regard to the extension which she names with so much pride, how she would gasp with astonishment had she been told that Whitley, from which she viewed the pleasant scene, would be turned into dreary streets of uniformly built villas, never deviating by so much as half a brick from the monotony of the usual “desirable residence”; that the old limits of the town, beyond which she could easily descry the panoramic revel of field and meadow, would be extended for nearly two miles each way, almost indeed to her beloved “Our Village,” and that the population of 16,000—each unit placidly pursuing its fairly prosperous calling—would be transformed, seventy years later, into a struggling, perspiring, more or less harassed army of 88,000, the majority not daring, though they would not admit the stern impeachment, to call their bodies their own.

“The good town of Belford,” she later remarks, “swarmed of course with single ladies ... and was the paradise of ill-jointured widows and portionless old maids. They met on the tableland of gentility, passing their mornings in calls at each other’s houses, and their evenings in small tea-parties, seasoned with a rubber or a pool, and garnished with the little quiet gossiping (call it not scandal, gentle reader!) which their habits required.... The part of the town in which they chiefly congregated, the lady’s quartier, was one hilly corner of the parish of St. Nicholas, a sort of highland district, all made up of short rows, and pigmy places, and half-finished crescents, entirely uncontaminated by the vulgarity of shops,” chosen, it is suggested, “perhaps because it was cheap, perhaps because it was genteel—perhaps from a mixture of both causes.” A kindly satire this, and interesting because it points so conclusively to a certain backwater near the Forbury, and under the shadow of the church of St. Laurence, which will be easily recognized by many who remember how it retained its character as a settlement for prim old ladies, of the kind described by Miss Mitford, until within quite recent times.

“Of the public amusements of the town, as I remember it at bonny fifteen,” she continues, “these were sober enough. Ten years before, clubs had flourished; and the heads of houses had met once a week at the King’s Arms for the purpose of whist-playing; whilst the ladies, thus deserted by their liege lords, had established a meeting at each other’s mansions on club-nights, from which, by way of retaliation, the whole male sex was banished,” save one. “At the time, however, of which I speak, these clubs had passed away; and the public diversions were limited to an annual visit from a respectable company of actors, the theatre being, as is usual in country places, very well conducted and exceedingly ill attended; to biennial concerts, equally good in their kind, and rather better patronised; and to almost weekly incursions from itinerant lecturers on all the arts and sciences, and from prodigies of every kind, whether three-year-old fiddlers or learned dogs. There were also balls in their spacious and commodious townhall, which seemed as much built for the purposes of dancing as that of trying criminals. Public balls there were in abundance; but at the time of which I speak they were of less advantage to the good town of Belford than any one, looking at the number of good houses and of pretty young women, could well have thought possible.”

These few extracts—space forbids a larger selection—are sufficient, we think, to prove how keen was the observing eye and how critical was the mind of Miss Mitford at this time when,—to use her own phrase—“I was a very young girl and, what is more to the purpose, a very shy one, so that I mixed in none of the gaieties,” a statement which seems to lend support to the current saying that “the onlooker sees most of the game.”

So far we have dealt with the Reading life as dating from 1797, but it is important to note that Miss Mitford speaks of a short residence in the town when she was but four years of age, and this would give us the year 1791. Unfortunately no proof for or against this is available, so far as we know, and we should scarcely have thought it worthy of mention but for another statement which she makes in her Recollections the authenticity of which it would be well to at least, attempt to clear up.

The statement has reference to the interest which Samuel Taylor Coleridge evinced in one of her earliest literary efforts, Christina; or, The Maid of the South Seas, when it was being prepared for press at about the year 1811. This interest she ascribes to “Mr. Coleridge’s kind recognition of my father’s exertions” in his behalf and relates to that romantic period of the poet’s life when, in the December of 1793, he suddenly enlisted as a common soldier in the 15th Light Dragoons under the nom de guerre of “Silas Tomkyn Cumberbatch.” We have it on good authority that on December 4, 1793, he was sent, with other raw recruits, to be drilled with his regiment, then garrisoned at Reading, from which date until his discharge on April 10, 1794, he clearly proved his unfitness for the calling of a man-at-arms.

The story of his discharge has been variously related, but all are agreed that his identity was revealed by his being overheard by certain of his officers reciting Greek lines, to say nothing of the polish which, scholar as he was, he could not disguise. The circumstance was sufficiently unique in those days—the gentleman ranker was a growth of later date—to occasion inquiries, and these resulted in communications with his friends, who came, identified, and bought him out. One of these officers was Captain Ogle, eldest son of that Dean of Winchester to whom, as we have noted in the earliest chapter of this book, Dr. Mitford was on the visit which resulted in his introduction to Miss Russell.

Miss Mitford’s account of the event is somewhat circumstantial, for she relates that as Dr. Ogle was on a short visit to the Mitfords, the opportunity of calling upon his father was gladly embraced by the son, who, in the course of conversation, recorded the unusual incident of the learned recruit, with the result that “one of the servants waiting at table” was “induced to enlist in his place,” and the “arrangement for his [Coleridge’s] discharge took place at my father’s house at Reading.”

The dates relative to Coleridge’s enlistment and discharge are incontrovertible, therefore in view of the lack of evidence to support the idea of the Mitfords being in Reading in 1794, we are inclined to doubt—as others have doubted—the authenticity of Miss Mitford’s narrative, suggesting rather, that having heard this romantic story, many years after—possibly from the lips of Captain Ogle himself—she readily assumed, with the licence of literary folk in general, that the incident took place as she recorded it.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] He represented Reading in Parliament, 1802-1820.

CHAPTER VI
BERTRAM HOUSE

Bertram House was at last finished and the beginning of 1806 saw the Mitfords in residence. In the matter of furnishing the Doctor had spared no expense, everything being new and of the latest pattern, in fact the best that a fashionable London upholsterer could supply. Of the pictures we know that the walls were well covered and that the collection included a Gainsborough, a pair of female heads by Greuze, and a portrait of the Doctor by Opie. We have already seen, in Mrs. Mitford’s description of the stone-laying ceremony, that they were attended by “the two men-servants on horseback”; this hints at a fairly complete retinue having been installed at the Reading house, but it was considerably augmented when the arrangements were completed at Grazeley. Appearances counted for much in the district and the Doctor was not the man to let slip such a grand opportunity for ostentatious display.

His hospitality was profuse and indiscriminate, resulting in a house-warming which extended over quite a lengthy period. As an incentive—had he need of one—Dr. Mitford had recently been appointed as one of the County magistrates, a tribute of appreciation from the Whigs, of whose cause he was an earnest partizan, which gave him an immediate rise in social status.

In time, of course, the family settled down to a more or less ordered form of life, so ordered indeed that the Doctor created as many excuses as possible to cover his frequent journeys to Town and his clubs. There was sport in plenty to be had in the neighbourhood, and of this the Doctor took full advantage, being a familiar figure around the countryside with his gun and spaniels. Then, too, there were the coursing meetings—the famous meetings at Ilsley and private matches arranged between friends—none of which were considered complete unless the Doctor were present or his famous kennel represented. Throughout Miss Mitford’s letters, occasionally to her father and often to friends, there are frequent references to the greyhounds whose names, in accordance with a custom prevalent then and still fashionable, all began with the letter M in token of their ownership. Thus, to name only a few, we have Mia, Manx, Marmion (a notable dog this, with an equally notable son of the same name), Mogul, Miller, Moss-Trooper, and Mopy. For all of these Miss Mitford ever exhibited the greatest affection, and in those cases where a spaniel grew too old to follow the gun or a greyhound too stiff to be matched, an asylum under Miss Mitford’s immediate eye and care was immediately provided, and the creature was henceforth looked upon as her own.

Taking advantage of this motherliness to dumb animals her father frequently handed over to her some specially valuable dog from whose later exploits as a courser he expected much. Apparently, however, the real reason for the supposed gift was not disclosed, with the result that when the dog was eventually removed the little mistress gave vent to her annoyance in no measured tones.

“It is a most extraordinary thing,” she says in one communication to her father, “that I never can have a dog that I like but you immediately take it from me and burthen me with the care of some detestable brute whom you in your eternal caprice fancy a good one. Observe, however, that in giving up my own darling Mordor, I bargain that that sulky, ungrateful, mangy beast Marmion shall be sent off as soon as you come home, and that I shall again have my sweet Marian to pet and comfort me.”

This was not, of course, a serious outburst, but merely the explosion of what she doubtless considered a truly righteous indignation, for, although she was no sportswoman, her love for her father gave her an interest in his pursuits, and she shared with him to the full the joy of triumph and the sorrow of defeat, while to disparage the Mitford kennel was to offer her a personal affront. On the other hand, she was quick to convey to the Doctor any item of praise which she overheard or might have addressed to her. “We called yesterday at the Fawcetts’, and the old General said he had kept greyhounds and seen many thousands, but had never had an idea of perfect and consummate beauty until he saw her”

She had a strong dislike to equestrian exercise—the rides of babyhood across the Alresford downs with her father could not count in this connexion—and although every inducement was offered her to ride, an inglorious fall from a donkey quickly settled her convictions as to her horsemanship, and her one and only riding-habit was forthwith converted into a winter-gown. Strictly speaking, the greater portion of her time was spent at home with her mother, receiving visitors or lying for hours at a time on the sofa, where she would devour a great quantity of books at a pace which, having regard to the extraordinary knowledge she imbibed from her reading, was truly astonishing.[9] At other times the little green chariot, their favourite equipage, would be ordered out, calls would be returned and the drive be possibly extended to Reading, where there would always be plenty of shopping to do and calls to be made on the old neighbours and friends who would have the latest news from Town or the latest gossip of their immediate circle to retail.

With a desire to augment his income, which must have been seriously depleted by the building operations and by the subsequent reckless expenditure on the household, the Doctor now began to indulge in a series of hazardous enterprises, which, with all a gambler’s insistence, he pursued intently the while they dragged him deeper and deeper into the mire. One of these was an extensive speculation in coal in which he engaged with a brother of M. St. Quintin. For this he supplied the whole of the capital in expectation of a return of £1,500 a year, but the whole thing was a failure and, with the exception of about £300, the capital was lost. Another Frenchman, a man of ingenious ideas but no money wherewith to put them to practical use, found a ready supporter in the Doctor, who was induced to advance £5,000 on the strength of a paper scheme. This man was the Marquis J. M. F. B. de Chabannes, and his scheme, a supposed improved method for the lighting and heating of houses, was embodied in a booklet which he published in 1803 with the comprehensive title of Prospectus d’un Projet pour la Construction de Nouvelles Maisons, Dont tous les calculs de détails procureront une très-grande Economie, et beaucoup de Jouissances. Unfortunately for its promoters, the scheme did not catch on with the public, the Marquis returned to France and the deluded Doctor continued for years to spend good money in the hope of recovering that which was irrevocably lost by suing the Marquis in the French courts, efforts which were all vain.

Meanwhile his fever for gambling grew apace and his absences from home were more and more frequent and prolonged, and the two women, being left much to themselves, conceived the notion of arranging and copying out for the press a collection of verses composed by the reverend father of Mrs. Mitford, Dr. Russell. They took considerable pains with this, to which was added a special preface by Mrs. Mitford, and when the packet was ready it was forwarded to Dr. Mitford, in Town, with a request that he should find a publisher and get as much as he could for it. Unfortunately, the sanguine editors were disappointed, for no publisher sufficiently enterprising could be found to accept the manuscript, although sundry extracts did subsequently find a certain publicity within the pages of the Poetical Register.

Following closely upon this effort, and in the May of 1806, Miss Mitford went for a few days on a visit to London as the guest of Monsieur and Madame St. Quintin, her old schoolmaster and his wife. A short round of festivities had been arranged for her benefit, including a visit to the Exhibition of Water Colours, evenings at the theatres and, what appears to have been a great treat for the impressionable Miss, some hours of two days which were spent at Westminster Hall looking on at the trial of Lord Melville[10] and listening to the speeches, and for which the Doctor, then in Town and staying at Richardson’s Hotel in Covent Garden, had procured tickets. She had now been absent from London for over three years and, no doubt, extracted a great deal of pleasure from her visit and its reunion with Fanny Rowden and Victoire St. Quintin, M. St. Quintin’s sister, with both of whom, together with the Doctor, the round of sight-seeing was enjoyed.

Mrs. Mitford stayed at home, but was kept well-posted in all the news by the inevitable letters, full of critical details, from her dutiful daughter. From one of these, dated from Hans Place, May 12, 1806, we quote:—

“I have much to tell you, but it can scarcely be compressed within the bounds of a letter. On Thursday, after I wrote, Miss Ayrton, Miss Carp, papa, and I went to the Exhibition. There are some uncommonly fine pictures, and it is even better worth seeing than last year. In the evening, Victoire, Miss A. and myself went with papa to the play to see The Provoked Husband and The Forty Thieves. Miss Duncan in Lady Townley is most admirable. I do not much admire Elliston as her husband. The Forty Thieves is a very magnificent spectacle, but nothing more; for the language and music are equally vulgar and commonplace. On Friday morning we went to Oxford Street. I was extravagant enough to give half a guinea for a dress skirt for myself, which I wore the next day to the trial. We were rather disappointed in Mr. Romilly.[11] The speech in itself was beautiful beyond description; but he wants animation, and drops his voice at the end of every sentence.... Miss Rowden, papa, and I are going to see Henry the Eighth to-night, and we are going to Westminster Hall to-morrow.... I shall hope to return Thursday or Friday; for, though I am greatly amused here, I am never quite happy without my dear, dear mother.”

Two days later this was followed by a still more characteristic effusion. The second day at Westminster Hall decided her that: “Mr. Romilly is charming and interesting; but my first and greatest favourite is Mr. Whitbread. Mr. Plumer is rather an inelegant speaker, though very animated. I have promised papa to write some verses to Mr. Whitbread. He has even superseded Mr. Fox in my good graces. I did not tell you, I believe, that I had the happiness of seeing Mr. Fox mount his horse on Saturday. I shall never again contend for his beauty. He was obliged to lean on two people, and looked so sallow and pale in the face, and so unwieldy in person, that I am obliged to yield our long-disputed point.” Rather hard on poor Mr. Fox, whom, hitherto, this exuberant young person had worshipped as a hero, even to the extent of removing her watch-stand from the head of her bed that it might give place to a bust of this gentleman which the Doctor had sent from Town. On this occasion it was a case of “Off with the old love and on with the new” in double-quick time, for, continuing, she says: “To make me amends my new favourite is what even you would call exquisitely handsome; a most elegant figure, and a voice which I could listen to with transport, even if he spoke in an unknown language. Mr. Plumer attacked him with the most virulent irony and ridicule; and Mr. W. stood with his face turned towards him and leant upon the desk, smiling the whole time, with the most fascinating good humour. You know I am always an enthusiast; but at present it is impossible to describe the admiration I feel for this exalted character.”

We quote these extracts with no thought of ridiculing the ardent partisan, but as a fore-shadowing of that enthusiasm and that quick impressibility which ever seemed to dominate Miss Mitford’s life; characteristics which often led her into excesses of transport at the discovery, or supposed discovery, of some noble trait in the characters of those who came within her ken, only to be as quickly repented of; often giving unintentional pain to others and resulting in an infinitude of trouble and annoyance to herself. Despite this temperamental defect, however, and while her friends looked on amazed at her infidelity, there was one to whom she remained unwaveringly faithful to the end, though this object of her great affection was the least worthy of all who came into her life.

Mr. Whitbread, favoured man, was the immediate recipient of some verses from his ardent admirer. They reached him, ten days after his Westminster display of elegance and fortitude, through Dr. Mitford, to whom they were posted from Bertram House under cover of the following ingenuous letter: “May 24, 1806.—I claim great merit, my dear darling, in sending you the enclosed lines, for I am not satisfied with them; but I would sooner mortify my own vanity by sending you bad verses, than break my promise by withholding them. I have called them impromptu to excuse their incorrectness; and though some may suspect them to be an impromptu fait à loisir, you must not betray the secret. From a perfect consciousness of my own enthusiasm, I have been so much afraid of saying too much, that I have fallen into the opposite fault and said too little. However, I had rather be thought anything but a flatterer, though it be in my opinion impossible to flatter Mr. Whitbread; for what language can equal his merits? Do not impute the faults and deficiencies in these lines to my laziness; for I assure you they cost me an infinite deal of trouble; but they are not good enough to show, and I had rather you would return them to me immediately. At all events, let me know how you like them, and what you have done with them.”

Not to be misled by the feigned artlessness of his daughter’s concluding sentences, the Doctor, as we have said, passed on the verses to Mr. Whitbread, who was pleased to acknowledge and eulogise them; and since they deserve it we give them below:—

Impromptu on Hearing Mr. Whitbread Declare in Westminster Hall, on Friday, May 16, 1806, that He “Fondly Trusted His Name would Descend with Honour to Posterity.”

The hope of Fame thy noble bosom fires,

Nor vain the hope thy ardent mind inspires;

In British breasts, whilst Purity remains,

Whilst Liberty her blest abode retains,

Still shall the muse of History proclaim

To future ages thy immortal name.

And while fair Scotia weeps her favoured son,

By place corrupted and by power undone,

England with pride her upright patriot sees,

And Glory’s brightest wreath to him decrees.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] A list kept as a check on the Circulating Library account for the years 1806 to 1811 inclusive, is a sufficient indication of this, the number for one month alone totalling fifty-five volumes and ranging through Fiction, Belles-Lettres, Travel and Biography.

[10] Impeached for malversation in his office as Treasurer of the Navy. The trial lasted sixteen days. Whitbread led for the Impeachers; Plumer—afterwards Master of the Rolls—ably defended and secured his acquittal.

[11] Sir Samuel Romilly, Solicitor-General.

CHAPTER VII
THE TRIP TO NORTHUMBERLAND

With a proper and increasing pride in his clever daughter, the Doctor now conceived the idea of taking her with him on an extended trip into Northumberland, thereby affording her some acquaintance with the scenes amidst which his family had lived for generations, a trip which would serve the double purpose of impressing the girl with a sense of the importance of her ancestors and present relations and of introducing her to the latter who, although they must have heard of her, had never yet seen her.

The journey was begun on Saturday, September 20, 1806, the first stage, that from Reading to London being by coach. From London they travelled in the carriage of Nathaniel Ogle, who personally conducted them to his own place in Northumberland, from which they were to make their various excursions in the district. Mrs. Mitford did not accompany them, but was kept well informed, as usual, by her daughter.

The first letter is dated from Royston, September 21: “We had a very long interval between the parting from my most beloved darling and the leaving Reading. The coach was completely full; and it was fortunate papa had secured a place on the box, where he continued during the whole journey. The company in the inside had the merit of being tolerably quiet; and I do not remember any conversation which lasted longer than a minute. I, certainly, ought not to complain of their silence, as I was more than equally taciturn, and scarcely spoke during the whole way. I was quite low-spirited, but never less fatigued by travelling. Both Mr. Joy and Dr. Valpy[12] met us before we left Reading, and M. St. Quintin and Victoire met us at the Bath Hotel. As soon as Victoire left me, I retired to bed, under the idea of pursuing our journey early in the morning. It was, however, half-past ten before Mr. Ogle got up, and we did not leave town till twelve. We employed the interval in going to the bookseller’s for a Cobbett, and bought a Cary’s Itinerary, an edition of Peter Pindar, and a few plays. The Edition of P. P. which we bought cheap, remains in town; but the others are our travelling companions. We went by Enfield to see Mary Ogle, and finding them at dinner we dined at Mrs. Cameron’s; we then changed horses at Waltham Cross; again at Wade’s Mill; and are just arrived here, where we sleep to-night. Mr. Ogle is extremely pleasant, and the carriage very convenient. We went the two first stages on the box of the barouche. I need not tell you, my dearest darling, that we felt nothing so much as the loss of your society; and I have wished myself at home fifty times in the last twenty-four hours, to be again with my dear mamma.”

Apart from the interest which, in these days, is always attached to an old-time account of stage-travel the letter is interesting by reason of the variety of literature purchased for perusal on the journey. The Cobbett referred to would probably be Cobbett’s Political Register (then being issued in parts), and intended for the Doctor’s personal reading; he being not only an admirer but an intimate friend of the outspoken reformer. Cary’s Itinerary was, of course, the well-known road-book and constant companion of all who travelled in stage-coach days; though why Miss Mitford was not content with her dainty, green-leather-covered copy of Bowles’ Post-Chaise Companion in two vols.—now a valued possession of the author’s—is difficult to understand, unless it was overlooked in the hurry and excitement of departure. Peter Pindar’s Works, then just completed in five vols., would be a valuable addition to the library at home, but the purchase of the plays is significant, proving the influence which Fanny Rowden had exercised on the mind of her pupil, inculcating a taste for the Drama which was to be of lasting importance.

The next letter is written from Little Harle Tower—a small place about fourteen miles from Morpeth—and is dated Sunday Evening, September 28.—

“I arrived here with Lady Charles,[13] about two hours since, my dearest mamma; and I find from papa that in his letter to you to-night he never mentioned that the irregularity of the post, which never goes oftener than three times a week from hence, will prevent our writing again till Wednesday, when we go to Sir William Lorraine’s, and hope to get a frank from Colonel Beaumont, whom we are to meet there. It is only by Lord Charles going unexpectedly to Morpeth that I am able to write this, merely to beg you not to be alarmed at not hearing oftener. I imagine papa has told you all our plans, which are extremely pleasant. Lord and Lady Charles stay longer in the country on purpose to receive us, and have put off their visit to Alnwick Castle that they may take me there, as well as to Lord Grey’s, Colonel Beaumont’s, and half a dozen other places.”

The reference in this letter to a “frank” is one which frequently occurs in Miss Mitford’s correspondence. It was, as Sir Rowland Hill once said, an “expedient for saving postage”—“discreditable shifts” another writer called them. In the days before the institution of Penny Postage—an event which put an end to “franking”—Members
of Parliament enjoyed the privilege of having their letters delivered and despatched free of charge. To secure this, members had merely to write their names on the covers to ensure free passage through the post, and frequently furnished their friends with packets of franks which were placed aside for use as occasion required. This latter expedient was, of course, a flagrant abuse of the privilege, and in one year it was computed that, had postage been paid on the franked correspondence, the revenue would have been increased by £170,000! In an endeavour to check this abuse it was enacted that the whole superscription must be in the handwriting of the Member, and that the frank was only available on the date (which it was necessary to name) which was on the cover. While the regulation certainly diminished the quantity of franking it did not put an end to the use of the privilege by other than Members, to whom it became the custom to despatch an accumulated batch of letters, intended for a number of people, with explicit instructions as to their destinations. The annoyance caused to Members, and the general confusion which sometimes resulted from this practice, may be better imagined than described. Miss Mitford herself gives us an amusing account of the troubles and trials of those who both used and abused the franking privilege, in her sketch on “The Absent Member,” in Belford Regis.

In the next letter which Miss Mitford wrote we have a record of some amusing table-talk, essentially feminine in character and which, undoubtedly, greatly impressed the observant young person who overheard it. It is addressed still from Little Harle Tower, dated October 3, and after a short description of the scenery, and the mud—which caused her to beg to be excused from such excursions in the future—she relates an account of a dinner at Sir William Lorraine’s at which Colonel and Mrs. Beaumont were of the party.—

“Mrs. B. was so polite as to express great regret that, as she was going from home, she could not see us at her house, but hoped, when next we came to Northumberland, we should come to see them at Hexham Abbey. She is a very sweet woman.... Mrs. B. told Lady Charles that they received last year a hundred thousand pounds from their lead mines in Yorkshire; and they never make less than eighty thousand, independent of immense incomes from their other estates. Mrs. B. was dressed in a lavender-coloured satin, with Mechlin lace, long sleeves, and a most beautiful Mechlin veil. The necklace she wore was purchased by her eldest son, a boy of eleven, who sent it from the jeweller’s without asking the price. It is of most beautiful amethysts; the three middle stones are an inch and a half long and an inch wide; the price was nine hundred guineas. Mrs. B. wished to return it; but the Colonel not only confirmed the purchase, but gave his son some thousands to complete the set of amethysts by a bandeau and tiara, a cestus for the waist, armlets, bracelets, brooches, sleeve-clasps, and shoe-knots. All these she wore, and I must confess, for a small dinner-party appeared rather too gaily decorated, particularly as Lady Lorraine’s dress was quite in the contrary extreme. I never saw so strong a contrast ... Colonel Beaumont is generally supposed to be extremely weak, but I sat next him at dinner, and he conducted himself with infinite propriety and great attention and politeness; yet when away from Mrs. Beaumont, he is (they say) quite foolish, and owes everything to her influence.” Added to this cryptic description—cryptic because, read it how we will, we cannot be sure that there is not a subtle touch of sarcasm in the words—is a shrewd observation on another visitor whom she calls Mr. M.

“I told you I was not enamoured of Mr. M., and I will now describe him to you.... He is an oddity from affectation; and, I often think, no young man affects singularity when he can distinguish himself by anything better. He affects to despise women, yet treats them with great respect; and he makes the most extraordinary exertions to provoke an argument, from which he generally escapes by some whimsical phrase.”

The letter concludes with a long list of festivities which are to take place in honour of her visit. Following on these, they journeyed to Kirkley, Mr. Ogle’s seat, whither it was originally intended they should travel direct but were deterred from so doing by the hospitality offered en route. As a matter of fact their stay at Kirkley was a short one, due to the same cause which had prevented their earlier arrival.

The only letter addressed from Kirkley is dated Wednesday morning, October 8:—

“We arrived here on Monday at about three o’clock; received with great glee by the Squire, and, after taking a short walk in the garden, returned to dress. We had some time to wait for Lord and Lady Charles, who did not arrive before half-past five or near six, and even then undressed. They had been detained by the axle-tree breaking down, and the detestable roads. Without their waiting to dress, we immediately sat down to dinner and spent a most delightful day. In the evening we found a manuscript play which had been sent last year for Mr. Sheridan’s perusal.[14] It is taken from a very striking story in the Canterbury Tales, of which I have forgotten the title.... I read it aloud to the ladies, and the gentlemen played billiards, and occasionally visited us. The play, which bears the name of ‘Sigendorf,’ is really extremely interesting, and much better, as to language, than most modern productions. Sheridan had never looked at it, and Mr. Ogle lent it to Lady Charles.

“Yesterday morning, after a long walk, Lord and Lady C. left us. We had an excellent dinner, and amused ourselves in the evening with the ‘Liber Veritatis,’ which is, as you may remember, a very expensive collection of two hundred of Claude Lorraine’s sketches, published by Boydell.

“We are going in about an hour to Little Harle ... for Mr. Ogle and papa remain here together. We go to-morrow to Alnwick and return the same night. To-morrow is expected to be a very full day at the Castle, on account of the Sessions Ball. The ladies—the married ones I mean—go in Court dresses, without hoops, and display their diamonds and finery on the occasion.

“Mr. Ogle is quite a man of gallantry and makes his house extremely pleasant. We talk of coming to see him again next week, when my cousin Mary and I are left to keep house alone at Morpeth, and my uncle and aunt go to Little Harle Tower.”

From Morpeth, on October 11, was despatched a very long letter, too long indeed for quotation in full, but from which we must give a few extracts. It begins:—

“In papa’s letter of yesterday, my dearest darling mamma, he promised that I would write you a long one to-day, and I certainly owe you one in return for the very entertaining epistle I received yesterday. After we left Kirkley, we called at Belsay, and saw Lady Monck and the little Atticus, who was born at Athens fifteen months since. He is a very fine boy, very like Sir Charles. Belsay is a very old castle, and its eccentric possessor has done all he possibly could desire to render it still more outré by stopping up the proper road, and obliging us to approach this fine specimen of Gothic architecture through the farm-yard. We arrived at Little Harle to dinner; and you would have been greatly amused at my having my hair cut by Lord Charles’s friseur, who is by occupation a joiner, and actually attended with an apron covered with glue, and a rule in his hand instead of scissors. He, however, performed his office so much to my satisfaction, that I appointed him to dress my hair the next morning for my visit to Alnwick. While I was thus employed, Lady Swinburne called on purpose to see me. Lady Charles said I was out walking. She is, you know, niece to the Duke of Northumberland, and I regretted not seeing her.

“Thursday morning we rose early and prepared for our visit. I wore my ball gown, and Lady C. lent me a beautiful necklace of Scotch pebbles, very elegantly set, which had been presented to her by the Duchess of Athole, with brooches and ornaments to match. I kept my front hair in papers till I reached Alnwick.... I would not attempt a description of Alnwick Castle, my dear mamma, but I must tell you it is by no means so very princely a residence as I had imagined. The entrance is extremely striking. After passing through three massy gateways, you alight and enter a most magnificent hall, lined with servants, who repeat your name to those stationed on the stairs; these again re-echo the sound from one to the other, till you find yourself in a most sumptuous drawing-room of great size, and as I should imagine, forty feet in height. This is at least rather formidable; but the sweetness of the Duchess soon did away every impression but that of admiration. We arrived first, and Lady Charles introduced me with particular distinction to the whole family; and during the whole day I was never, for one instant, unaccompanied by one of the charming Lady Percys, and principally by Lady Emily, the youngest and most beautiful. We sat down sixty-five to dinner, and I was within three of the Duchess.... After dinner, when the Duchess found Lady Charles absolutely refused to stay all night, she resolved at least that I should see the castle, and sent Lady Emily to show me the library, chapel, state bed-rooms, etc. This dear, charming Duchess is generally thought very proud; and Lord Charles says he never knew her so attentive to any young person before.... At nine we went to the Ball; and the room was so bad, and the heat so excessive, that I determined, considering the long journey we had to take, not to dance, and refused my cousin Mitford of Mitford, Mr. Selby, Mr. Alder, and half a dozen more whose names I have forgotten. At half-past ten we took leave of the Duchess and her amiable daughters, and commenced our journey homeward, after a most delightful visit.” On the journey they lost their way and did not arrive at Morpeth until seven o’clock in the morning. The letter concludes:—“Seventy miles, a splendid dinner, and a ball all in one day! Was not this a spirited expedition, my darling? Papa is to be very gay this week with Nat [Nathaniel Ogle]. He left us to-day in excellent health and spirits.”

Mary Russell Mitford.
(From a drawing by Joseph Slater.)

Despite the temporary absence of the Doctor, the gay doings of this triumphal march continued, of which the fullest accounts were dispatched to the delighted mother alone at Bertram House.

These brought letters in return giving, as usual, all the news of the farm and of the progress of events in Reading, which at that time was being engrossed by the Greek Plays, performed with remarkable ability by the boys of the Grammar School under the direction of Dr. Valpy, and by the excitement consequent upon the near approach of a Parliamentary election. In reference to this Miss Mitford wrote to her mother, possibly with a sense of foreboding, for she knew her father’s every weakness:—“I only hope Mr. Shaw Lefevre will be well enough to canvass for himself, without requiring papa’s presence, which would be rather inconvenient at present.”

Doctor Mitford was still enjoying his gay week with Nathaniel Ogle, the arrangement being that upon his return to Morpeth and his daughter he was to conduct her to Hexham, the place of his birth. Meanwhile a short programme of sight-seeing had been mapped out for Miss Mitford, which would occupy the interval remaining before the father and daughter had arranged to meet. Unfortunately, however, the Doctor, upon receipt of an intimation from Mr. Shaw Lefevre’s agent, hurried off to Reading at a moment’s notice, without so much as an apology to his host and with only a hastily scribbled note to his daughter in which he offered no suggestions as to what she should do, practically leaving her to her own devices both in excusing his erratic behaviour and as to finding the means of returning home.

Nathaniel Ogle was furious, the friends in Northumberland were amazed, while Miss Mitford was both distracted and indignant. Between her tears she at once wrote off to her father at Reading, rebuking him with such dignity that, had he possessed any sense of propriety he must, upon reading it, have been thoroughly ashamed.

“It is with great reluctance, my dearest darling, that I am compelled to say that I never have experienced so disagreeable a surprise as in receiving your letter yesterday. What could possibly influence you to prefer Mr. Lefevre’s paltry vanity of being at the head of the poll (for of his election he was certain) to Nat Ogle’s friendship and your daughter’s comfort? Lady Charles leaves Little Harle on the 4th. On the 1st she is obliged to bring me to Morpeth; and she says that she shall be miserable in the idea of leaving me there, for your uncle, you well know, is in a state which must be dreadful to any one, and to a visitor most particularly so. You must have seen, before you left Morpeth, that your uncle’s faculties were very much decayed; and Mary says that his fits of passion are such as to give you the idea of being in a hospital for lunatics.

“Is this a time for me to stay, or my aunt to receive me with any comfort? If you need any other motive to return, I must tell you that Mr. Ogle is extremely offended at your leaving him in this manner; and nothing but your immediately coming back can ever excuse you to him.

“I now implore you to return, and I call upon mamma’s sense of propriety to send you here directly. Little did I suspect that my father, my dear, beloved father, would desert me in this manner, at this distance from home. Every one is surprised. They had thought that your parental affection was the strongest sentiment of your heart, and little thought it would yield so entirely to your friendship for any one. I expect no answer but a personal one, for it is utterly impossible that you should have any motive to detain you so strong as those I have given you for your return.

“I have had a charming excursion, but I am a great deal too much discomposed to give you any particulars of it.... Pray return, my dear papa. You and mamma have ever my warmest affection, but you are rather out of favour at present; yet I am still fondly my Ittey boy’s own

“M. R. MITFORD.”

Two days later she received a letter from her father to say that he had set out for Bertram House which called forth a protest, this time to her mother, to whom she expressed surprise at her father’s singular behaviour.

“Happy as you must always be to see that dear, that most beloved of men, I am persuaded that upon this occasion you would not be pleased at his arrival. It has left me in a most awkward situation, and Mr. Ogle, whom I have just left, is extremely offended at his departure. In the name of goodness, dearest mamma, persuade my own darling to come back again directly.... It is surely a very odd thing for a young woman to be left in this strange manner. I hope you will be able to prevail upon papa to return immediately, or he will lose a very excellent and very attached old friend, and do no material service to the new one, for whose sake he seems to forget all other things and persons.... Much as I love him, it is not from a capricious affection, but from an unfeigned sense of propriety, that I desire his return. Heaven bless you, my dearest, best mamma! I am ever, with the fondest affection, your and my dear runaway’s own

“MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.

“If papa happens to open this letter, he must remember it is meant for mamma, and he must not read it.”

It must be evident, from these letters, that Miss Mitford very keenly felt the thoughtless conduct of her father, not only on account of her own predicament, but because it was creating a very bad impression as to the Doctor’s own character on the Northumbrian relatives and friends.

Fortunately the father’s absence did not put a complete stop to the programme of excursions, although it did much to mar the pleasure of them for at least one member of the party. Details of these excursions were embodied in a succession of further letters to Mrs. Mitford and included an account of a narrow escape from death upon a very steep hill; a visit to Lord Tankerville at Chillingham, where the proud owner personally drove up his famous herd of wild white cattle for his visitor’s benefit; a journey to Chevy Chase, and another dinner at Alnwick Castle. In one of these letters Miss Mitford again reverts to her father’s escapade saying, “there never was so hare-brained a thing done as his running off in this manner,” concluding with “it is impossible to describe how much I long to see my mother, my own darling mother. Nothing can exceed the affection which I am treated with here, or the pains they take to amuse me; but if I stay three weeks longer without seeing you I shall be absolutely miserable. I must never marry, that is certain, for I never should be able to support an absence of three months from my beloved parents.”