Part 21 (1/2)
”I am now in a place the most beautifully romantic I ever saw in my life: it is the Tunbridge of this part of the world, to which I was sent by the doctor's order, my ague often returning, notwithstanding the loads of bark I have taken” (she wrote to her daughter from Lovere, July 24, 1747). ”To say truth, I have no reason to repent my journey, though I was very unwilling to undertake it, it being forty miles, half by land and half by water; the land so stony I was almost shook to pieces, and I had the ill luck to be surprised with a storm on the lake, that if I had not been near a little port (where I pa.s.sed a night in a very poor inn), the vessel must have been lost. A fair wind brought me hither next morning early. I found a very good lodging, a great deal of good company, and a village in many respects resembling Tunbridge Wells, not only in the quality of the waters, which is the same, but in the manner of the buildings, most of the houses being separate at little distances, and all built on the sides of hills, which indeed are far different from those of Tunbridge, being six times as high: they are really vast rocks of different figures, covered with green moss, or short gra.s.s, diversified by tufts of trees, little woods, and here and there vineyards, but no other cultivation, except gardens like those on Richmond-hill. The whole lake, which is twenty-five miles long, and three broad, is all surrounded with these impa.s.sable mountains, the sides of which, towards the bottom, are so thick set with villages (and in most of them gentlemen's seats), that I do not believe there is anywhere above a mile distance one from another, which adds very much to the beauty of the prospect.
”We have an opera here, which is performed three times in the week. I was at it last night, and should have been surprised at the neatness of the scenes, goodness of the voices and justness of the actors, if I had not remembered I was in Italy. Several gentlemen jumped into the orchestra, and joined in the concert, which I suppose is one of the freedoms of the place, for I never saw it in any great town. I was yet more amazed (while the actors were dressing for the farce that concluded the entertainment) to see one of the princ.i.p.al among them, and as errant a _pet.i.t maitre_ as if he had pa.s.sed all his life at Paris, mount the stage, and present us with a cantata of his own performing. He had the pleasure of being almost deafened with applause. The ball began afterwards, but I was not witness of it, having accustomed myself to such early hours, that I was half asleep before the opera finished: it begins at ten o'clock, so that it was one before I could get to bed, though I had supped before I went, which is the custom.
”I am much better pleased with the diversions on the water, where all the town a.s.sembles every night, and never without music; but we have none so rough as trumpets, kettle-drums, and French horns: they are all violins, lutes, mandolins, and flutes doux. Here is hardly a man that does not excel in some of these instruments, which he privately addresses to the lady of his affections, and the public has the advantage of it by his adding to the number of the musicians.
”The fountain where we drink the waters rises between two hanging hills, and is overshadowed with large trees, that give a freshness in the hottest time of the day. The provisions are all excellent, the fish of the lake being as large and well tasted as that of Geneva, and the mountains abounding in game, particularly blackc.o.c.ks, which I never saw in any other part of Italy.”
Lady Mary, though still corresponding with her husband, had clearly given up all idea of returning to England or of Montagu joining her abroad. She was quite content with her state, which, after all, so far as we know, was her own choice. She took a house at Lovere, and interested herself in improving it and developing the grounds.
”I have been these six weeks, and still am, at my dairy-house, which joins to my garden” (she wrote to her daughter in July, 1748). ”I believe I have already told you it is a long mile from the castle, which is situated in the midst of a very large village, once a considerable town, part of the walls still remaining, and has not vacant ground enough about it to make a garden, which is my greatest amus.e.m.e.nt, it being now troublesome to walk, or even go in the chaise till the evening. I have fitted up in this farm-house a room for myself--that is to say, strewed the floor with rushes, covered the chimney with moss and branches, and adorned the room with basins of earthen-ware (which is made here to great perfection) filled with flowers, and put in some straw chairs, and a couch bed, which is my whole furniture. This spot of ground is so beautiful, I am afraid you will scarce credit the description, which, however, I can a.s.sure you, shall be very literal, without any embellishment from imagination. It is on a bank, forming a kind of peninsula, raised from the river Oglio fifty feet, to which you may descend by easy stairs cut in the turf, and either take the air on the river, which is as large as the Thames at Richmond, or by walking [in] an avenue two hundred yards on the side of it, you find a wood of a hundred acres, which was all ready cut into walks and ridings when I took it. I have only added fifteen bowers in different views, with seats of turf. They were easily made, here being a large quant.i.ty of underwood, and a great number of wild vines, which twist to the top of the highest trees, and from which they make a very good sort of wine they call _brusco_. I am now writing to you in one of these arbours, which is so thickly shaded, the sun is not troublesome, even at noon.
Another is on the side of the river, where I have made a camp kitchen, that I may take the fish, dress, and eat it immediately, and at the same time see the barks, which ascend or descend every day to or from Mantua, Guastalla, or Pont de Vie, all considerable towns. This little wood is carpeted, in their succeeding seasons, with violets and strawberries, inhabited by a nation of nightingales, and filled with game of all kinds, excepting deer and wild boar, the first being unknown here, and not being large enough for the other.
”My garden was a plain vineyard when it came into my hands not two years ago, and it is, with a small expense, turned into a garden that (apart from the advantage of the climate) I like better than that of Kensington. The Italian vineyards are not planted like those in France, but in clumps, fastened to trees planted in equal ranks (commonly fruit-trees), and continued in festoons from one to another, which I have turned into covered galleries of shade, that I can walk in the heat without being incommoded by it. I have made a dining-room of verdure, capable of holding a table of twenty covers; the whole ground is three hundred and seventeen feet in length, and two hundred in breadth. You see it is far from large; but so prettily disposed (though I say it), that I never saw a more agreeable rustic garden, abounding with all sort of fruit, and produces a variety of wines. I would send you a piece [_sic_]
if I did not fear the customs would make you pay too dear for it.”
Lady Mary was now in her sixtieth year, and asked for nothing better than peace and comfort. Her manner of life she described as being as regular as that of any monastery. She rose at six, and after an early breakfast worked in the garden. Then she visited the dairy and inspected her chickens--at one time she had two hundred of them--and her turkeys, geese, ducks, and peac.o.c.ks, her bees and her silkworms. At eleven she read for an hour, and after an early dinner would take a siesta. Then she played picquet or whist with some friendly priests. In the evening she walked in the woods, or rode, or went on the lake. ”I enjoy every amus.e.m.e.nt that solitude can afford,” she said. ”I confess I sometimes wish for a little conversation, but I reflect that the commerce of the world gives more uneasiness than pleasure, and quiet is all the hope that can reasonably be indulged at my age.” It would not have been Lady Mary if she had not kept a keen eye on the pence. She was delighted to be able to say in relation to her house and grounds that ”all things have hitherto prospered under my care; my bees and silkworms are doubled, and I am told that, without accidents, my capital will be so in two years' time.” She enjoyed the more her evening now and her fish at dinner, because neither cost her anything. ”The fishery of this part of the river belongs to me; and my fisherman's little boat (where I have a green lutestring awning) serves me for a barge. He and his sons are my rowers without expense, he being very well paid by the profit of the fish, which I give him on condition of having every day one dish for my table.”
Age dealt gently with Lady Mary. At the age of sixty-two, she could say that her hearing and her memory were good, and her sight better than she had any right to expect. She had appet.i.te enough to relish what she ate, slept as soundly as she had ever done, and had never a headache. Still, the fact was forced upon her that she was no longer so young as she had been--which unpleasing reflection she accepted philosophically enough.
”I no more expect to arrive at the age of the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough[19]
than to that of Methusalem; neither do I desire it” (she wrote to Lady Bute in the early spring of 1751). ”I have long thought myself useless to the world. I have seen one generation pa.s.s away; and it is gone; for I think there are very few of those left that flourished in my youth.
You will perhaps call these melancholy reflections: they are not so.
There is a quiet after the abandoning of pursuits, something like the rest that follows a laborious day. I tell you this for your comfort. It was formerly a terrifying view to me, that I should one day be an old woman. I now find that Nature has provided pleasures for every state.
Those are only unhappy who will not be contented with what she gives, but strive to break through her laws, by affecting a perpetuity of youth which appears to me as little desirable at present as the babies do to you, that were the delight of your infancy.”
[Footnote 19: The d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough was born on May 29, 1660, and died on October 18, 1744.]
She reverted to the same subject when writing to her husband a month or two later:
”I can no longer resist the desire I have to know what is become of my son. I have long suppressed it, from a belief that if there was anything of good to be told, you would not fail to give me the pleasure of hearing it. I find it now grows so much upon me, that whatever I am to know, I think it would be easier for me to support, than the anxiety I suffer from my doubts. I beg to be informed, and prepare myself for the worst, with all the philosophy I have. At my time of life I ought to be detached from a world which I am soon to leave; to be totally so is a vain endeavour, and perhaps there is vanity in the endeavour: while we are human, we must submit to human infirmities, and suffer them in mind as well as body. All that reflection and experience can do is to mitigate, we can never extinguish, our pa.s.sions. I call by that name every sentiment that is not founded upon reason, and own I cannot justify to mine the concern I feel for one who never gave me any view of satisfaction.
”This is too melancholy a subject to dwell upon. You compliment me on the continuation of my spirits: 'tis true, I try to maintain them by every art I can, being sensible of the terrible consequences of losing them. Young people are too apt to let theirs sink on any disappointment.”
There was, in 1751, some extraordinary incident in the life of Lady Mary, the true history of which has never been made public.
”Pray tell me,” Horace Walpole wrote to Sir Horace Mann on August 31 of that year, ”if you know anything of Lady Mary Wortley: we have an obscure history here of her being in durance in the Brescian or the Bergamasco: that a young fellow that she set out with keeping has taken it into his head to keep her close prisoner, not permitting her to write or receive any letters but which he sees: he seems determined, if her husband should die, not to lose her, as the Count [Richcourt] did Lady Oxford.”
No reply to this letter reached Walpole, but his insatiable curiosity would not accept this as a check, and he wrote again on October 14: ”Did you ever receive the question I asked you about Lady Mary Wortley's being confined by a lover that she keeps somewhere in the Brescian? I long to know the particulars.”