Part 3 (1/2)

Certainly the day was perfect, and the sight and the music pretty; but I scarcely ever disliked people more or felt more beaten down by shyness. My only thoughts from the moment we went in were: How I wish it was over, and how I wish n.o.body would speak to me.

_September_ 6, 1836, ROEHAMPTON

Mama and I went to dine at Holland House.... The rooms are just what one would expect from the outside of the handsome old house, with a number of good pictures in the library, where we sat, all portraits. Lord Holland is perfectly agreeable, and not at all a man to be afraid of, in the common way of speaking, but for that very reason I always am afraid of him--much more than of her, who does not seem to me agreeable. I was very sorry Lord Melbourne did not come, as he would have made the conversation more general and agreeable.

The impression she made on others in her girlhood will be seen by this pa.s.sage in the ”Reminiscences of an Idler,” by Chevalier Wyhoff: ”I had the honour of dancing a quadrille with Lady f.a.n.n.y Elliot, the charming daughter of the Earl of Minto. Her engaging manners and sweetness of disposition were even more winning than her admitted beauty.”

In July it was decided that her brother Henry should go out to Australia with Sir John Franklin. The idea of parting troubled her extremely, and, moreover, the project dashed all the castles in the air she had built for him. August 21st was the day fixed for his sailing. The 20th came--”dismal, dismal day, making things look as if they understood it was his last.” Long afterwards, whenever she saw the front of Roehampton House, where she said good-bye to him, the scene would come back to her mind--the waiting carriage and the last farewells. The autumn winds had a new significance to her now her brother was on the sea. She was troubled too about religious problems, but she found it difficult, almost impossible, to talk about the thoughts which were occupying her. Writing of her cousin Gilbert Elliot, afterwards Dean of Bristol, for whom she felt both affection and respect, she says: ”In the evening Cousin Gilbert talked a great deal, and not only usefully but delightfully, about different religious sects and against the most illiberal Church to which he belongs--but how could I be happy? The more he talked of what I wished to hear, the more idiotically shy I felt and the more impossible it became to me to ask one of the many questions or make one of the many remarks (foolish very likely, but what would that have signified?) which were filling my mind.”

_December_ 24, 1836, BOWOOD

Mr. Moore sang a great deal, and one song quite overcame Lady Lansdowne. At dinner I sat between Henry [11] and Miss Fazakerlie, who told me that last year she thought me impenetrable. How sad it is to appear to every one different from what one is.

I like both her and Henry better than ever, but oh, I dislike myself more than ever--and so does everybody else--almost. Is it vain to wish it otherwise?--no, surely it is not. If my manner is so bad must there not be some real fault in me that makes it so, and ought I not to pray that it may be corrected?

[11] Afterwards Lord Lansdowne and the father of the present Marquis.

She read a great deal at this time; Jeremy Taylor, Milton, and Wesley, Heber, Isaac Walton, Burnet; Burns was her favourite on her happiest days.

She thought that work among the poor of London might help her; but her time was so taken up both with looking after the younger children and by society that she seems to have got no further than wondering how to set about it.

On June 20th, 1837, William IV died, and in July Parliament was dissolved.

On the 4th they were back again at Minto.

Her uncle John Elliot was successful in his candidature of Hawick.

”Hawick,” she writes, ”has done her duty well indeed--in all ways; for the sheriff's terrible riots have been nothing at all. Some men ducked and the clothes of some torn off. We all felt so confused with joy that we did not know what to do all the evening.” These rejoicings ended suddenly: Lady Minto was called to the death-bed of her mother, Mrs. Brydone.

_August_ 19, 1837, MINTO

I feel this time as I always do after a great misfortune, that the shock at first is nothing to the quiet grief afterwards, when one really begins to understand what has happened.

I cannot help constantly repeating over and over to myself that she is gone, and sometimes I do not know how to bear it and however to be comforted for not having seen her once more.

When the new Queen's Parliament met after the General Election the strength of the Conservatives was 315 and of the Liberals 342. The Melbourne Ministry was in a weaker position; they could only hold a majority through the support of the Radical and Irish groups, and troubles were brewing in the country. On the other hand, Peel's position was not an easy one; the split among the Conservatives on Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation had left bitterness behind, and in addition to this complication, his followers in the Commons included both men like Stanley, who had voted for Parliamentary reform, and its implacable opponents. But in spite of this flaw in the solidarity of the Opposition, the Ministers were far from secure. There were the troubles in Canada, which Lord Durham had been sent out to deal with (the Canadian patriots had a great deal of Lady f.a.n.n.y's sympathy), and in England the grievances of the poor were in the process of being formulated into the famous People's Charter. During the parliamentary sessions the Mintos remained in London, with only occasional very short absences.

ADMIRALTY, _December_ 26, 1837

People all seem pleased with the news from Canada because we are beating the poor patriots--let people say what they will I must wish them success and pity them with all my heart.

EASTBOURNE, _April_ 14, 1838

It is not only the out of doors pleasures, the sea, the air, etc., that we find here, but the way of living takes a weight from one's mind, of which one does not know the burden till one leaves London and is freed from it. ”I love not man the less” from feeling as I do the great faults, to us at least, of our London society. It is because I love man, because I daily see people whose thoughts I long to share and profit by, that I am so disappointed in being unable to do so. Oh, why, why do people not all live in the country--or if towns must be, why must they bring stiffness and coldness on everybody?

ADMIRALTY, _May_ 10, 1838

Court Ball.... Beautiful ball of beautiful people dancing to beautiful music. Queen dancing a great deal, looking very happy.