Emily Eden - Miss Eden's Letters

Mrs. Green, poor woman, seems to think you a little dull, but I always told you how it would be when you lost me, and I am glad to see Mrs. Green has so much penetration. Ever your affectionate sister,

We heard yesterday from the Selkirks 50 50 Thomas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, married, 1807, Jean, daughter of James Wedderburn Colvile. He was Lady Delancey’s uncle. a certain account of poor Sir W. Delancey’s death, 51 51 Sir William Delancey died in a cottage in the village of Mont St. Jean a week after he was wounded. His wife wrote a description of his death, which was published in 1906: A Week at Waterloo in 1815, edited by Major B. R. Ward. and we heard it also from several other good authorities. The Selkirks have been in town every day in hopes of hearing either of or from Lady Delancey, but without success. Her situation is most dreadful, as he died at Waterloo, so she is not near any acquaintance she might have made at Brussels. She is but eighteen, and literally just out of the nursery. She has with her only a new maid, whom Lady Selkirk procured for her but three weeks ago. It appears very shocking that none of her relations should have gone to her on hearing of his wound, as she will now have every detail to manage for herself, and her return to Penge, which she quitted in such violent spirits not a month ago, will be dreadful. The Selkirks expect her every hour.

I have just been interrupted by the arrival of the Lansdowne children, who are come here for the afternoon to make Lady Lansdowne’s excuse for not coming to take leave before she goes out of town. The little girl 52 52 Lady Louisa Fitzmaurice, married in 1845 Hon. James Kenneth Howard. is the prettiest little thing I ever saw – the smallest child – looking like a fairy for all the world .

We were all very sorry to hear of poor Comte Meerveldt’s 53 53 The Austrian Ambassador died on July 4. death, for her distress must be very great. Little Rodolphe will now be a great consolation to her. Lady Selkirk has had one very short note from poor Lady Delancey. 54 54 Lady Delancey married, secondly, in 1819, Captain H. Harvey. It was almost too composed to be comfortable to her friends. She said her husband had died at Waterloo, and was buried the morning she wrote, at Brussels, and she wished Lady Selkirk would have his picture done immediately by Heaphy, 55 55 Thomas Heaphy, 1775-1835. He painted on the spot Wellington and his officers before an action in the Peninsular War. as that was the only thing she could now live for. She made no complaint, except saying that she had had but one very happy week at Brussels, which was over, and that she was sure Lady Selkirk, at least, would feel for such a very wretched creature. She is expected at Penge to-morrow. There is an odd mixture of joy and sorrow in that house, as Lady K. Douglas 56 56 Lady Katherine Douglas, sister of Lord Selkirk, married in July 1815 John Halkett, Governor of the Bahamas. is married there to-day, which is rather astonishing, considering the state her family is in…

MY DEAREST GEORGE, I put a most excellent joke in these two first lines, but was obliged to efface them from my fear of the police, but it is inserted in sympathetic Ink, and if you will hold it for ¾ of an hour by a very hot fire, rubbing it violently the whole time without intermission, with the back of your hat and one hand, I daresay you will find it.

We are much as you left us. I cannot buy any sheep yet, for the price has risen in the market prodigiously, and we must wait a little, but Walsh is to go to Smithfield this week to see how things are. In your directions you left out a very important word, whether the ferrule should be fixed in the bottom, or the seat of the Tilbury. I say the former, and Mama the latter. One makes the umbrella too low, the other too high, but by a little arrangement of mine, too long to explain, I have made it the right height for myself, bonnet, feathers, and all, and it will altogether be very comfortable.

There is to be a meeting of all the Sunday Schools in the district next week at Bromley, and a collection, and a collation. We mean to eat up the collation, and give all our old clipped sixpences to the collection, which we think is a plan you would approve if you were here.

Madden 57 57 The tutor. has given us so much to do, we have not a minute’s spare time. We are duller than a hundred posts about Astronomy, and if you can find any planets for us in Paris, we shall be obliged to you, as we cannot find one on the globe, and Madden only laughs at us. There! Good-bye, my dearest George. Take care of your little self. Your affectionate

MY DEAREST SISTER, Did Mama write to you yesterday? I wish I knew, but she is unluckily upstairs, and indeed I must say is hardly ever in the way when I want her.

I had meant to have answered your letter yesterday, but Mary, Miss Vansittart, and I went a-pleasuring, so that I had not time.

We went in the morning to Greenwich, where Mr. Van. 58 58 Chancellor of the Exchequer. met us in the Admiralty barge, and took us to the steamboat.

We found there Lord and Lady Liverpool, 59 59 Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, Prime Minister. He married Louisa Theodosia, daughter of the Bishop of Derry (Earl of Bristol). my dear Letitia Taylor, Lady Georgina, and Lady Emily Bathurst, Lord Bathurst, Lord Harrowby, Sir G. Hope, Sir George Warrender, Mr. Lushington, etc. Lady Liverpool still retains the notion that I am Miss Eden in the country, as well as in town, and introduced Mary as Miss E. Eden, and me as Miss Eden to all the company, and Mr. Van. insisted on calling Miss Taylor – Miss Rickets, so that the most curious effect steam has had yet was making a large company answer to wrong names.

The Invention itself, I believe, was supposed to succeed perfectly. We had a very pleasant row, or steaming, or whatever else it may be called, beyond Woolwich, and back to Greenwich again in three hours, during which time we also contrived to eat a large breakfast, and a larger dinner and dessert.

Lord Liverpool had some very improper purring scenes, and Lady Liverpool was very good-natured…

It must be an amusing sight to see Sarah 60 60 Lady Sarah Robinson, Lady Buckinghamshire’s step-daughter. scolding the post-boy for not driving fast enough, or calling to the hostler for “a pair of horses to St. Albans immediately,” or adding up the innkeeper’s account, and giving him something over for the scoundrel that drove.

That is the style she must now adopt. Ever your affect. sister,

MY DEAREST SISTER, The reason I am in such a state of ignorance about the letter is, that Mama and Louisa 61 61 Miss Eden’s sister, Mrs. Colvile. went to meet them in their way to London; that we were behind them in the poney-cart; and George behind us in the gig. We all fell in with each other and the letters in the middle of Penge Common, where we each took what belonged to us. I met immediately with the dreadful intelligence that you were going actually to take May Place, and on our recommendation, which dreadful intelligence I communicated to George, who immediately fainted away, and was driven off by his servant. I fainted away, and was driven off by Mary, and Mama and Louisa went on in hysterics to London. I really am quite in a fright about it, and cannot think what beauties I ever saw in it. The house is nothing but a pile of old bricks, the rooms cold, damp, dirty, inconvenient cells, the view cheerless and bleak, the offices large and decaying, the garden unproductive and expensive, the neighbours impertinent and intrusive, the gardener impudent, the housemaids idle, the landlord exacting, and the tenant in a terrible scrape indeed – and so is the tenant’s sister too, as far as I can make out… The only thing I know for certain is that I am to send our bricklayer there early to-morrow to look at the house, and to meet George, who goes there at break of day; and if I can bribe him, as he is a very clever person, to pull the whole thing down, I will. It is past letter-time, and I have not time to read over what nonsense I have written. Lady Byron 62 62 Anne Isabella, only child of Sir Ralph Milbanke Noel, Bart. Married, January 2, 1810, Lord Byron. They had one daughter, Ada Augusta, born December 10, 1815, married in 1835 to William, Earl of Lovelace. and her child come here the 27th. Most affectionately yours,