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Lady Fanny announces the fact of her arrival at her beloved home with many ecstatic exclamation marks.
November2, 1831, MINTO !!!!Between Longtown and Langham we passed the toll that divides England and Scotland. Harry and the coachman waved their hats and all heads were poked out at window.The moment we got into Scotland it felt much finer, the sun shone brighter and the country really became far prettier. We went along above the Esk, which is a little rattling, rumbling, clear, rocky river, prettier than any we ever saw in England....As we drove into Langham we were much surprised by a loud cheer from some men and boys at the roadside, who all threw off their caps as we passed. While we were changing, a man offered to Papa that they would drag him through the town; Papa thanked him very much but said he would rather not; so the man said perhaps he would prefer three cheers, which they gave as we drove off.... The whole town crowded round the carriages. Just as we were setting off, however, we were very much surprised to see numbers of people take the pole of the little carriage and run off with Papa and Mama with all their might. They spun all through the town at a fine rate, and did not stop for ever so long. There was immense cheering as we drove off, and the people ran after us ever so far.... The house all looked beautiful, and this evening we feel as if we had never left Minto.
But she was not to stay there long, for early in 1832 they went to Roehampton House, near London, and the same year Lord Minto was appointed Minister at Berlin.
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At this time Berlin was not a capital of sufficient dignity to entitle it to an embassy; but considering the state of European politics, the appointment was one of some diplomatic importance.
Germany was at the beginning of her task of consolidation. The revolution of July had not been without its effect on her. In the southern States the cause of representative government was not wholly powerless; but it had been weakened by the reaction after 1815. Since the government was no longer an undisguised tyranny and since the people themselves were growing richer, a strong sentiment of personal loyalty to the sovereign began to spread among them. Constitutional changes were therefore indefinitely postponed. The great work of the next few years for Prussian statesmen was the removal of commercial barriers between the various German States, and the establishment of aZollvereinbetween them. In this way the sway of Austria was weakened, and though political union as an aim was carefully kept in the background, the foundation for the subsequent consolidation of the German Empire was securely laid. During the two central years of this process, 1832-4, Lord Minto was at Berlin. The manners of the time were far simpler and the life at the court far more informal than they were soon to become. Law and custom still preserved some lingering barbarities: during their stay at Wittenberg they heard of a man being broken on the wheel.
They stopped at Brussels on the way. There is a characteristic entry in Lady Fanny's diary describing a visit to the battle-field.
NAMUR,September6, 1832We coach-people left Brussels much earlier than the others that we might have time to walk about Waterloo....They showed us the house where the Duke of Wellington slept the night before and the night after the battle and wrote home his dispatches; then after a long and fierce dispute between a man and woman which was to guide us, the man took us to the Church, where we saw the monuments of immense numbers of poor common soldiers and officers--then to the place where four hundred are buried all together and one sees their graves just raised above the rest of the ground. Then we drove to the field of battle, and the man showed us everything; it was very nice and very sad to hear all about, but as I shall always remember it, I need say nothing about it. We are quite in a rage about a great mound that the Dutch have put up with a great yellow lion on the top, only because the Prince of Orange was wounded there, quite altering the ground from what it was at the time of the battle. The monument to Lord Anglesea's leg too, which we did not of course go to see, makes one very angry, as if he was the only one who was wounded there--and only wounded too when such thousands of poor men were killed and have nothing at all to mark the place where they are buried; and I think they are the people one feels most for, for though they do all they can, after they are dead one never hears any more about them.
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Soon after their arrival at Berlin, Lady Minto fell dangerously ill. From September, 1832, there is a long gap in Lady Fanny's diary, for she had no heart to set anything down. This long stretch of anxiety coming when she was sixteen years old, if it did not change her nature, brought to light new qualities which were to mark her character henceforward. There is a little entry written down eight years afterwards on the birthday of her sister Charlotte which shows that she, as well as others, looked back on this time as a turning-point in her life.
Bob'm sixteen to-day, just the age I began to be unhappy, because I began to think. Heaven spare her from the doubts and fears that tormented me.
During the months of her mother's gradual recovery she seems each day to have been happier than on the one before.
June6, 1833, POTSDAMAt a little before eleven this morning, Mary, Ginkie, Henry,7Mr. Lettsom8and I set off from Berlin in a very curious rickety machine of a carriage, to leave Mama for a whole day and night, which feels very impossible, and is the best sign of her (health) that one could have. We were very happy and we thought everything looking very nice. We were sorry to see no friends as we left Berlin, for we looked so beautiful in our jolting little conveyance with four horses and a post-boy blowing the old tune on his horn.
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To escape the heat of Berlin they moved out to Freienwalde.
June14, 1833, FREIENWALDEA beautiful morning, and at about 10 they all set off from Berlin, leaving Mama, Papa, Bob'm and I to follow after in the coach. After they went, there were two long hours of going backwards and forwards through the empty rooms, then having said a sad good-bye to Senden,9Hymen,9Mr. Lettsom and Fitz, though we know we shall see them again soon, we got into the coach with the squirrel in a bag and drove off. I could not help feeling very sorry to leave it all, though it will be so very nice to be out of it, but I knew we should never be all there again as we have been, and all the misery we have had in that house makes one feel still more all the happiness of the last month there.There is nothing to say of the country, for it is the same as on all the other sides of Berlin; the soil more horrid than anything I ever saw, and of course all as flat as water, but just now and then some rather nice villages.... After about two hours there we came on, first through nice, small Scotch fir woods, then quite ugly again till near here, when we got into really pretty banks of oak, beech, and fir, down a real steep road and along a nice narrow lane till we got here, where they were all standing on the steps of our mansion ready to receive us. Mama was carried to the drawing-room ... before the house is a wee sort of border all full of weeds, but nothing like a garden or place belonging to the house, but there seem very few people; then there is a terrace, which is very nice though it is public. Mama is not the least tired and quite pleased with it all. It is very, very nice to be here, able to go out without our things and expecting no company, and what at first one feels more nice than everything, not having any carriages or noises out of doors; for eight months and a half we have never been without that horrid, constant rumbling in the streets. It isveryodd to feel ourselves here; unlike any place I ever lived in. The bath house is close by, but that is the only house near us.
There they lived all the summer the life that they liked best. They lost themselves in the forest, they read aloud, and they enjoyed the rustic theatre. The autumn brought visits to Teplitz and Dresden.
They were back in Berlin for the winter and early spring, when she began to take more part in society.
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April 1, 1834, BERLINStupid dinner of old gentlemen. Mary still being rather silly10did not dine at table.... It was very awful to be alone, but at dinner I was happy enough as Löven sat on one side of me. Humboldt was on the other. Afterwards came Fitz for a moment and Deken and Bismarck.April 5, 1834, BERLINI sat the second quadrille by my stupidity in refusing Bismarck.
Early in May came "the hateful morning of good-byes" to friends in Berlin, and at Marienbad. Lord Minto heard the news that Lord Grey had resigned owing to Lord Althorp's refusal to agree to the Irish Coercion Bill. Lord Melbourne succeeded him as Prime Minister. Lord Minto had not long returned to England when the King summarily dismissed Lord Melbourne and a provisional Government under the Duke of Wellington was patched together until Sir Robert Peel should return from abroad. The governorship of Canada had been offered meanwhile to Lord Minto, and the family started on their home journey fearing they would have to leave England immediately for Quebec. But this did not happen, and December found them at last once more on the road to Minto. The girls wrote poems celebrating their return on the journey, and tried every cure for impatience as the carriage rolled along.
MINTO, Thursday, December 25, 1834We left Carlisle about eight, and for the three first stages were so slowly driven that our patience was nearly gone. To make it last a little longer Mary read some "Hamlet" aloud between Longtown and Langholme, and I had a nap.... As soon as we entered Hawick we were surrounded by an immense crowd.... The bells rang, there were flags hung all along the street, and fine shouting as we set off. Papa, which we did not know at the time, had to make a little speech, and contradict a shameful report of his having taken office. A few minutes on this side of Hawick we met the two boys and Robert riding to meet us, looking lovely. Our own country looked really beautiful; rocks, hills, and Rubers Law all seemed to have grown higher. We passed the awful ford in safety across our own lovely Teviot, and soon found ourselves at Nelly's Lodge, where old Nelly opened the gate to us.... The trees looked large and fine--in short, everything perfect. Catherine, Mrs. Fraser, and Wales received us at the door, and in a few minutes we were scattered all over the house. We spent a most happy evening.... This has really been a happy Christmas. It is wonderful to be here.
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At this point Lady Fanny's early girlhood may be said to end. Her life in London society and the events which led to her marriage will be told in the next chapter.
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While the Minto family were still on their way home from Germany a startling incident occurred in English politics. One morning a paragraph appeared in the Times announcing the fact that the King had dismissed Lord Melbourne.
We have no authority (it ran) for the important statement which follows, but we have every reason to believe that it is perfectly true. We give it without any comment or amplification, in the very words of the communication, which reached us at a late hour last night. "The King has taken the opportunity of Lord Spencer's death to turn out the Ministry, and there is every reason to believe the Duke of Wellington has been sent for. The Queen has done it all."
(The authority upon which theTimeswas relying was that of the Lord Chancellor.)
So on coming down to breakfast that morning the Ministers, having received no private communication whatever, read to their amazement that they had been already dismissed. Brougham had surreptitiously conveyed the information in order to embarrass the Court. The general trend of political gossip at the time was expressed by Palmerston, who wrote:
It is impossible to doubt that this has been a preconcerted measure and that the Duke of Wellington is prepared at once to form a Government. Peel is abroad; but it is not likely he would have gone away without a previous understanding one way or the other with the Duke, as to what he would do if a crisis were to arise.
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As a matter of fact there had been no concerted plan. It was the first and last independent step William IV ever took, and a most unconstitutional instance of royal interference. The Duke, summoned by the King, expressed his willingness to occupy any position His Majesty thought fit, but considering the Liberal majority in the House of Commons was two to one, and it was but two years since the Reform Bill passed, he did his best to dissuade the King from dismissing all his Ministers. During the interview the King's secretary entered and called the attention of the King to the paragraph in theTimesthat morning, which concluded with the statement that the Queen had done it all. "There, Duke, you see how I am insulted and betrayed; nobody in London but Melbourne knew last night what had taken place here, nor of my sending for you: will your Grace compel me to take back people who have treated me in this way?"
Thereupon the Duke consented to undertake a provisional Government, while Mr. Hudson was sent off to Italy in search of Sir Robert Peel. He reached Rome in nine days; at that time very quick travelling. "I think you might have made the journey in a day less by taking another route," is said to have been Peel's only comment upon receiving the Duke's letter. He returned at once to England to relieve the temporary Cabinet, and formed a Ministry in December. The same month Parliament was dissolved, and the Conservative party went to the country on the policy of "Moderate Reform" enunciated in Peel's Tamworth manifesto. "The shameful report" referred to by Lady Fanny in the last chapter, and immediately contradicted by Lord Minto on his return to Scotland, was that he had joined the Peel Ministry.
Thus Lady Fanny came home to find the country-side preparing for a mid-winter election. Her uncle, George Elliot, was standing for the home constituency against Lord John Scott, whom he just succeeded in defeating. In most constituencies, however, the Liberals triumphed more easily, and when the new Parliament met they were in a majority of more than a hundred. In April Lord John Russell carried his motion for the appropriation of the surplus revenues of the Irish Church to general moral and religious purposes, so Peel resigned. Melbourne again became Prime Minister, and in the autumn of the same year, 1835, Lord Minto was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty.
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This meant a great change in Lady Fanny's life; henceforward for the next eight years more than half of every year was spent by her in London. There is a change, too, in the spirit of her diaries. Her nature was the reverse of introspective and melancholy, but at this time she was often unhappy and dissatisfied for no definite reason; her diaries show it. It is not likely that others were aware of this private distress. She was leading at the time a busy life both at home and in society, and there were many things in which she was keenly interested. The troubles confided to these private pages were not due to compunction for anything she had done, nor were they caused by any particular event; they expressed simply a general discontent with herself and a kind ofWeltschmerznot uncommon in a young and thoughtful mind. For the first time she seems glad of outside interests because they distract her.
The months in London were broken by occasional residence at Roehampton House and by visits to Bowood. At Bowood with the Lansdowne family she was always happy. There she heard with delight Tom Moore sing his Irish melodies for the first time. There was much, too, in London to distract and amuse her: breakfasts with Rogers, luncheons at Holland House, and dinner-parties at which all the leading Whig politicians were present. But society did not satisfy her; she wanted more natural and more intimate relations than social gatherings usually afford.
LONDON,May9, 1835We went to Miss Berry's in the evening. I thought it very tiresome, but was glad to see Lord John Russell and his wife.BOWOOD,December26, 1835The evening was very quiet, there was not much to alarm one, and the prettiest music possible to listen to. Mr. Moore singing his own melodies--it was really delightful, and a kind of singing I never heard before. He has very little voice, but what he has is perfectly sweet, and his real Irish face looks quite inspired. The airs were most of them simply beautiful, and many of the words equally so.
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January31, 1836, ADMIRALTYI am reading "Ivanhoe" for the first time, and delighted with it, but things cannot be as they should be, when I feel that I require to forget myself in order to be happy, and that unless I am taken up with an interesting book there never, or scarcely ever, is a moment of real peace and quiet for my poor weary mind. What is it I wish for? O God, Thou alone canst clearly know--and in Thy hands alone is the remedy. Oh let this longing cease! Turn it, O Father, to a worthy object! Unworthy it must now be, for were it after virtue, pure holy virtue, could I not still it? Dispel the mist that dims my eyes, that I may first plainly read the secrets of my wretched heart, and then give me, O Almighty God, the sincere will to root out all therein that beareth not good fruit....February4, 1836, ADMIRALTYThe great day of the opening of Parliament. Soon after breakfast we prepared to go to the House of Lords--that is to say, we made ourselves great figures with feathers and finery. The day has been, unfortunately, rainy and cold, and made our dress look still more absurd. The King did not come till two, so that we had plenty of time to see all the old lords assembling. Their robes looked very handsome, and I think His Majesty was the least dignified-looking person in the house. I cannot describe exactly all that went on. There was nothing impressive, but it was very amusing. The poor old man could not see to read his speech, and after he had stammered half through it Lord Melbourne was obliged to hold a candle to him, and he read it over again. Lord Melbourne looked very like a Prime Minister, but the more I see him and so many good and clever men obliged to do, at least in part, the bidding of anyone who happens to be born to Royalty, the more I wish that things were otherwise--however, as long as it is only in forms that one sees them give him the superiority one does not much mind. After the debate, several of Papa's friends came to dine here. Lord Melbourne, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Glenelg, and the Duke of Richmond, who has won my heart--they talked very pleasantly.March9, 1836, ADMIRALTYI wonder what it is that makes one sometimes like and sometimes dislike balls, etc. It does not always depend on whom one meets. I am sure it is not, as most books and people seem to think, from love of admiration that one is fond of them or else how should I ever be so, when it is so impossible for anybody ever to admire my looks or think me agreeable? I sometimes wish I was pretty. And I do not think it is a very foolish wish: it would give me courage to be agreeable.
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All through this year there are many troubled entries:
March28, 1836, ADMIRALTYYouth may and ought to have--yes, I see by others that it has--pleasures which surpass those of unthinking though lovely childhood: but have I experienced them? ... What makes the same sun seem one day to make all nature bright, and the next only to show more plainly the dreariness of the landscape? Oh wicked, sinful must be those feelings that make me miserable--selfish and sinful--and I cannot reason them away, for I do not understand them. Prayer has helped me before now, and I trust it will still do so. O Lord, forsake me not--take me into Thy own keeping.... Mama fifty to-day [March 30, 1836]. Oh the feelings that crowd into my heart as if they must burst it when I look to this day three years ago. I cannot write or think clearly of it yet. I can only feel--but what, I do not myself know--at one moment agony, doubts, and fears, as if it was still that fearful day; then joy almost too great to bear. When I think of her as she now is, then everything vanishes in one overpowering feeling of intense thankfulness. I have several times to-day seen her eyes fill with tears--every birthday of those one loves gives one a melancholy feeling, and the more rejoicings there are the stronger that feeling is.June27, 1836, ADMIRALTYIt was decided that we should go to the Duchess of Buccleuch's breakfast. My horror of breakfasts is only increased by having been to this one, though I believe it was particularly pleasant. 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 nobody would speak to me.
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September6, 1836, ROEHAMPTONMama 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 passage in the "Reminiscences of an Idler," by Chevalier Wyhoff: "I had the honour of dancing a quadrille with Lady Fanny 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."
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December24, 1836, BOWOODMr. Moore sang a great deal, and one song quite overcame Lady Lansdowne. At dinner I sat between Henry11and 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?
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.
August19, 1837, MINTOI 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.
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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 Emancipation 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 Fanny'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,December26, 1837People 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,April14, 1838It 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,May10, 1838Court Ball.... Beautiful ball of beautiful people dancing to beautiful music. Queen dancing a great deal, looking very happy.ADMIRALTY,June22, 1838Evening at a Concert at the Palace--all the good singers.... All the foreigners there, Soult and the Duke of Wellington shaking hands more heartily than any other two people there.
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ADMIRALTY,June28, 1838Day ever memorable in the annals of Great Britain! Day of the coronation of Queen Victoria! ... We were up at six, and Lizzy, Bob'm, and I, being the Abbey party, dressed in all our grandeur. The ceremony was much what I expected, but less solemn and impressive from the mixture of religion with worldly vanities and distinctions. The sight was far more brilliant and beautiful than I had supposed it would be. Walked home in our fine gowns through the crowd; found the stand here well filled, and were quite in time to see the procession pass back. Nothing could be more beautiful, the streets either way being lined with the common people, as close as they could stand, and the windows, house-tops, balconies, and stands crowded with the better dressed. Great cheering when Soult's carriage passed, but really magnificent for the Duchess of Kent and the Queen. The carriages splendid. Did not feel in the Abbey one quarter of what I felt on the stand.MINTO,November4, 1838This morning brought us the sad, sad news of the death of Lady John Russell. God give strength to her poor unhappy husband, and watch over his dear little motherless children.
The only event of importance which occurred in the family during 1838 was the marriage of the eldest daughter, Mary, to Ralph Abercromby, son of the Speaker and afterwards Lord Dunfermline. It was a very happy marriage, but Lady Fanny missed her sister very much, and her accounts of the wedding and the last days before it are mixed with regrets. She speaks of it as "an awful day," though it seems to have ended merrily enough in dancing and rejoicings.
In May, 1839, the Government resigned in consequence of the opposition to the Jamaica Bill. The object of the Bill was to suspend the constitution of Jamaica for five years, since difficulties had been made by the Jamaica Assembly in connection with the emancipation of slaves. The Radicals voted with the Conservatives against the Government and the Bill was lost.
ADMIRALTY,May7, 1839We are all out!!!!Papa was summoned to a Cabinet at twelve this morning. Mama and I in the meantime drove to some shops, and when we came home found him anxiously expecting us with this overpowering news. We bore, and are still bearing it with tolerable fortitude; but we are all very, very sorry, and every moment find something new to regret. Mama, notwithstanding all she has said, is not better pleased than the rest of us. Papa looks very grave, or else tries to joke it off.
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FRIDAY,May10, 1839, ADMIRALTYAgitating morning--one report following another every hour. Sir Robert Peel refused to form a Ministry unless the Queen would part with some of her household. To this she would not consent. To-day she sent for Lord Melbourne.... We went to the first Queen's ball, very anxious to see how she and other people looked, and to try to foresee coming events by the expression of faces.... I spoke to scarcely one Tory, but our Whig friends were in excellent spirits--the Queen also seemed to be so.TUESDAY,May14, 1839, ADMIRALTYPapa and Bill12came from the House of Lords quite delighted with Lord Melbourne's speech in explanation of what has passed--manner, matter, everything perfect.
Thus, within the week, the Whig Ministry had resigned and accepted office again: this is what had happened.
On his return from Italy to take office Sir Robert Peel requested the Queen to change the ladies of her household, and on her refusal to do so, the Melbourne Ministry had come in again. Their return to power has been generally considered a blunder, from the party point of view; but their action in this case was not the result of tactical calculations. The young Queen was strange as yet to the throne, and she could not bear to be deprived of her personal friends. When Peel made a change in her household the condition of accepting office, she turned to the Whigs, who felt they could not desert her. "My dear Melbourne," wrote Lord John, "I have seen Spencer, who says that we could not have done otherwise than we have done as gentlemen, but that bur difficulties with the Radicals are not diminished...."
They were, indeed, hard put to it to carry on the Government at all, and they only succeeded in passing their Education Bill by a majority of two.
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On August 12th the Mintos were still kept in London. "Oh for the boys and guns and dogs, a heathery moor, and a blue Scotch heaven above me!" she writes. When they did get away home, they remained there until the beginning of the new year. At home she seems to have been much happier. She taught her young brothers and sisters, she visited her village friends, and rambled and read a great deal. In short, it was Minto!--all she found so hard to part from when marriage took her away.
Many of the extracts from the diaries quoted in this chapter must be read in the light of the reader's own recollections of the process of getting used to life. They show that if Lady Russell afterwards attained a happy confidence in action, she was not in youth without experience of bewilderment and doubts about herself. Following one another quickly, these extracts may seem to imply that she was gloomy and self-centred during these years; but that was never the impression she made on others. Like many at her age, when she wrote in a diary she dwelt most on the feelings about which she found it hardest to talk. Her diary was not so much the mirror of the days as they passed as the repository of her unspoken confidences. "Looked over my journals, with reflections," she writes later; "inclined to burn them all. It seems I have only written [on days] when I was not happy, which is very wrong--as if I had forgotten to be grateful for happy ones."
Mrs. Drummond, Lord John Russell's stepdaughter (who was then Miss Adelaide Lister), has recorded, in a letter to Lady Agatha Russell, her recollections of the Minto family at that time.
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I think (she writes) my first visit to the Admiralty, where I was invited to children's parties, must have been in the winter before my mother's death. I have no distinct first impressions of the grown-up part of the family, except perhaps of your grandmother, Lady Minto. Although children exaggerate the age of their elders, and seldom appreciate beauty except that of people near their own age, I did realize her great good looks. She had very regular features and a beautiful skin, with a soft rose-colour in her cheeks. Her hair was brown, worn in loops standing out a little from the face, and she always wore a cap or headdress of some kind. Her manner was most kind and winning, and she had a pleasant voice. I am sure she must have been very even-tempered; and as I recall her image now, and the peace and serenity expressed in her beautiful face, I think she must have had a happy life. I never saw her otherwise than perfectly kind and gentle and quite unruffled by the little contretemps, which must have befallen her as they do others. With this gentleness there was something that made one feel she was capable and reliable, that there was a latent strength on which those she loved could lean and be at rest. But in speaking of these things I am going far beyond the impressions of the small child skipping about the large rooms of the Admiralty.There came a time when I not only went to parties and theatricals at the Admiralty, but went in the afternoons to play with the children. One great game was the ghost game. To the delightful shudders produced by this was added some fear of the butler's interference, for it took place on the large dining-room table. The company was divided into two parties--the ghosts and the owners of the haunted house. At four o'clock in the afternoon (so as to give plenty of time to pile up the horror) the inmates of the house got into bed--that is, on to the table. The ghosts then walked solemnly round and round, while at intervals one of them imitated the striking of the clock; as the hours advanced the ghosts became more demonstrative and the company in bed more terror-stricken, and as the clock struck twelve the ghosts jumped on to the table! Then ensued a frightful scrimmage with ear-splitting squeals, and the game ended. I imagine it was this climax which used to bring the butler. We also had the game of giant all over the house. The yells in this case sometimes brought Lady Minto on the scene, who was always most good-natured. We were quieter when we got into mischief; as when we made a raid on Lord Minto's dressing-room, and each ate two or three of his compressed luncheon tablets and also helped ourselves to some of his pills. This last exploitdidrather disturb Lady Minto; but, as it happens, neither luncheons nor pills took any effect on the raiders.There were often delightful theatricals at the Admiralty. The best of the plays was a little operetta written by your mother, called "William and Susan," in which Lotty and Harriet13sang delightfully in parts; but this must have been later on than the game period.
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I come now to my first distinct impression of your mother. It is as clear as a miniature in my mind's eye, and it belongs to a very interesting time. I think her engagement to Papa14must just have been declared. She came with Lord and Lady Minto to dine with him at 30, Wilton Crescent, the house he owned since his marriage to my mother. As she passed out of the room to go down to dinner, "Lady Fanny's" face and figure were suddenly photographed on my brain. Her dark and beautiful smooth hair was most becomingly dressed in two broad plaited loops, hanging low on the back of the neck; the front hair in bands according to the prevailing fashion. Her eyes were dark and very lustrous. Her face was freckled, but this was not disfiguring, as a rich colour in her cheeks showed itself through them. Her neck, shoulders, and arms were most beautifully white, and her slim upright figure showed to great advantage in the neat and simple dress then worn. Hers was of blue and silver gauze, the bodice prettily trimmed with folds of the stuff, and the sleeves short and rather full. I think she wore an enamelled necklet of green and gold. Mama15long afterwards told me that at this dinner she went through a very embarrassing moment; Papa asked her what wine she would have, and she, just saying the first thing that came into her head, replied, "Oh, champagne." There was none. Papa was sadly disconcerted, and replied humbly, "Will hock do?" I used to take much interest at all times in Papa's dinner-parties, and sometimes suggested what I considered suitable guests. I was much disappointed when I found my selection of Madame Vestris and O'Connell did not altogether commend itself to Papa.
Mrs. Drummond, in another letter to Lady Agatha Russell, alluding to a visit to Minto before Lord John Russell's second marriage, writes:
Mama [then Lady Fanny Elliot] was very kind to me even then, and I took to her very much. I used to admire her bright eyes and her beautiful and very abundant dark hair, which was always exceedingly glossy, and her lovely throat, which was the whitest possible--also her sprightly ways, for she was very lively and engaging.
The winter of 1840 was spent between the Admiralty and Putney House, which the Mintos had taken. Lady Fanny's description of Putney sounds to us now improbably idyllic:
Out almost till bedtime--the river at night so lovely, so calm, still, undisturbed by anything except now and then a slow, sleepy-looking barge, gliding so smoothly along as hardly to make a ripple. The last few nights we have had a little crescent moon to add to the beauty. Then the air is so delightfully perfumed with azalea, hawthorn, and lilac, and the nightingales sing so beautifully on the opposite banks, that it is difficult to come in at all.
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PUTNEY HOUSE,April 30, 1840Finished my beloved "Sir Samuel Romilly." It is a book that everybody, especially men, should immediately read and meditate upon.
It was during the summer of this year, 1840, that she began to see more of Lord John Russell. She had met him a good many times at "rather solemn dinner-parties," and he had stayed at Minto. She had known him well enough to feel distress and the greatest sympathy for him when his wife died, leaving him with two young families to look after--six children in all, varying in age from the eldest Lister girl, who was fourteen, to Victoria, his own little daughter, whose birth in 1838 was followed in little more than a week by the death of her mother. Lord John was nearly forty-eight. Hitherto he had been a political hero in her eyes rather than a friend of her own; but, as the following entries in her diary show, she began now to realize him from another side.
June 3, 1840,PUTNEY HOUSELord John Russell and Miss Lister16came to spend the afternoon and dine. All the little Listers came. All very merry. Lord John played with us and the children at trap-ball, shooting, etc.
The next time they met was at the Admiralty: "Little unexpected Cabinet meeting after dinner. Lords John Russell and Palmerston, who talkedWar with Francetill bedtime. I hope papa tells the truth as to its improbability." Two days later she writes: "Lord John Russell again surprised us by coming in to tea. How much I like him." The next evening she dined at his house: "Sat between Lord John and Mr. E. Villiers. Utterly and for ever disgraced myself. Lord John begged me to drink a glass of wine, and I asked for champagne when there was none!"