Mary Lovell - A Scandalous Life - The Biography of Jane Digby

JED

P. S. Send me an answer please by the bearer. I will eat my bread at dinner, always. 18

It was perhaps hardly surprising that Jane was a beauty. Her looks were inherited from her maternal grandmother – a woman of almost fabled loveliness and charm. Jane’s mother was herself described by the Prince Regent as ‘without doubt, the handsomest woman in England’. 19 However, it was unusual that Jane was given the same education as her brothers and male cousins, so that in addition to the practical basic education which naturally included French, a little German and Italian and a knowledge of the arts, she also had a thorough grounding in classical languages and acquired a love of history both ancient and modern. Nevertheless she managed to emerge from the schoolroom at the age of sixteen reasonably unspoiled and without undue vanity. Credit for this must go in large part to Miss Margaret Steele, the sober, fair-minded and determinedly moral governess recruited when Jane was ten years old.

The daughter of a scholarly but impoverished clergyman, Margaret Steele had been discreetly educated as a lady. She never married and when, on the death of her father, it became necessary to find a way of supplementing the meagre income bequeathed by her late parent the role of governess was one of the few acceptable occupations open to her. Her family was well known to Lady Andover and Lady Anson, and Lady Andover had no hesitation in offering Margaret Steele the position of governess to her daughter; not as a £40-a-year drudge at the mercy of the household but as a social equal who commanded the respect of the pupil’s family and whose opinions were heard.

Miss Steele took very seriously her duty to impart the behaviour and skills that Jane would require for her adult role in the highest ranks of society. These skills included a thorough training in music, needlework, the Bible, social deportment and other accomplishments not normally dealt with by the male tutor who had been engaged at Holkham for the young men of the family, who would later be shipped off to public school at the age of eleven or twelve to finish their education.

The governess had an apt pupil in Jane when Jane wished to attend. She quickly displayed, in common with her mother and aunts, a remarkable talent for painting. Margaret Steele – already irreverently called ‘Steely’ by her young charge – was not artistically gifted; however, Margaret’s elder sister Jane, who painted watercolours of a professional standard, gladly consented to tutor Jane Digby in this subject. Between them the two sisters had a great influence on Jane’s upbringing, and a deep affection developed between mentors and child which would last into the old age of all three. Steely’s nickname was apt: she was uncompromising in her steadfast obligation to duty and industry. She had a firm belief in Christianity and adhered strictly to the tenets of the Church of England, striving always for self-improvement. In the louche era of the Regency she was almost a portent of the Victorian ideal to come; in an earlier age she might have been a Puritan. However, Steely’s forbidding nature was offset by the presence of her gentler sister, who was soft and kind, and forgiving of the sins of others. Moreover, Steely had one failing of her own, a slightly guilty enjoyment of popular literature of a ‘non-improving’ variety such as the novels of Mrs Radcliffe, which the sisters used to read aloud to each other.

Jane’s lifelong delight in travel was fostered early. Her father rose quickly to the rank of rear-admiral and was often absent for long periods of duty with the fleet. In 1820, when it was necessary for him to visit Italy, Lady Andover accompanied him on the overland journey, and Jane and the Misses Steele went also, attended by Admiral Digby’s valet and Lady Andover’s French maid. They travelled in a convoy of carriages and luggage coaches, calling at Paris and Geneva. While they were in Italy thirteen-year-old Jane, obviously totally confident of her father’s love for her, engagingly requested an advance on her allowance. Her coquettish use of punctuation and heavy underscoring, sometimes teasing, sometimes firm, reflects their close relationship:

Rear Admiral Digby

Casa Brunavini

Florence, Italy

Florence, Thursday

Dearest Papa,

I write because I have a favour to ask which I am afraid you will think too great to grant; but as you at Geneva trusted me with [a] littler sum I am not ashamed, after you have heard from Steely my character, to ask a second time.

It is to … to … to advance me my pocket money, two pounds a week for 20 weeks counting from next Monday and I’ll tell you what for! If you approve I’ll do it but if not I’ll give it up!!!

Remember at Geneva after you advanced me 12 weeks , I never teased you for money until the time was expired. I promise to do the same here. Do not tell anyone but give me the answer. I will not ask for half a cracie until the time is expired. Think well of it and remember it is 20 ! ! ! weeks ; I ask 40 pounds ! ! ! ! Not a farthing more or less. 40 pounds.

Goodbye and put the answer at the bottom of this [note]. I have long been trying to hoard the sum but I find that I want it directly and then I should not have it till we were gone. If you repulse me I will not grumble and if you grant it me ‘je vous remercie bien’. Pensez y and goodbye, mon bon petit père , I remain your very affectionate daughter.

Jane Elizabeth Digby 20

Unfortunately the surviving note lacks Admiral Digby’s response, and it is impossible to guess at the childhood desire that prompted such a request, or whether it was granted.

At the age of fifteen Jane was sent off to a Seminary for Young Ladies near Tunbridge Wells, Kent, for finishing. Here, in the traditions of English public school life, Jane fagged for an older girl, Caroline ‘Carry’ Boyle, during her first year. 21 She missed her family but not unusually so, and to compensate she became a frequent correspondent, especially with her brothers, of whom she was very fond. Their notes to each other were partly written in the ‘secret’ code which she would use freely in her diary throughout her life. 22

There was a good deal to write about. Their grandfather Coke, only a year short of seventy, decided to remarry in February 1822. His bride, Lady Anne Keppel, was an eighteen-year-old girl, the daughter of a family friend, Lady Albemarle (who had died at Holkham in childbirth some years earlier), and god-daughter to Mr Coke. Furthermore, since Lady Anne’s father married a young niece of Mr Coke’s at the same time, there was a good deal of speculation that Lady Anne had married merely to escape from home.

Soon afterwards, Coke’s youngest daughter, Elizabeth (Eliza), who had reigned at Holkham as chatelaine while her father was a widower, married John Spencer-Stanhope and finally left the family home.

When Jane Digby left school at Christmas 1823, she was – as the French writer Edmond About wrote – ‘like all unmarried girls, a book bound in muslin and filled with blank white pages waiting to be written upon’. 23 She was also a lively, self-confident young woman who adored her parents and was not above teasing her papa with humorous affection when she came upon a ‘quaint’ tract on his desk entitled ‘Hooks and Eyes to keep up Falling Breeches’. 24

It had already been decided by ‘dearest Madre’ that Jane would make her début in the following February when the season started, rather than wait a further year. There is an unsubstantiated story that Jane was romantically attracted to a Holkham groom, 25 and that an attempted elopement precipitated her early entry into society; however, according to her poems, Jane had thoughts and eyes for no one during these months but her handsome eldest cousin George Anson. It is doubtful that George, one of the most popular men about town, gave Jane more than a passing thought, for he was busy sowing his wild oats with married women; the hero-worship directed at him by his cousin was totally unrequited. Besides, there was a family precedent for early entry into society. Jane’s Aunt Anne was betrothed at fifteen, and made her début a year later.