Ann Mitford

“ This letter stands to the lasting credit of its [318] writer and affords ample proof of his steadfast and unflinching devotion to his trust, failing which the tragedy of Miss Mitford’s life would have been deeper than it was. He alone had the power of drawing out the best that was in Miss Mitford, in getting her to express the moral and spiritual side of her nature. Art, literature, the Drama she could talk and write upon to other people, but it was to William Harness that she would pour out her convictions on the deeper things of life. ”

“ Verna rose and went into the house, returning with a large bottle of the excellent ale they brew in Maritzburg, and a long glass.
“Good!” exclaimed the guest, as he drained the foaming brew. “Wou! Our people cannot make such tywala as this.” The while he had been noting, with calm approval, every movement of the girl: the fine erectness of her carriage, the firm walk, straight from the hips. As he talked he noted, too, the quick movements of her floury hands and arms, for she had resumed her occupation. ”

“ Even at this juncture Miss Mitford’s thoughts were only for her father, and in offering thanks to God that he had been spared to her, she also bemoans her lot that she has not strength enough to give her whole life to him, to read to him, to drive out with him, to play cribbage with him, and never be five minutes from his side! ”

“ She thinks a pleasant delusion better than a disagreeable truth; and it is to this fondness for old books, and old places, and the old stories that have grown up into a popular creed about them, that we may trace the paramount charm of simplicity and trustfulness, the cheerful spirit and the teeming good-nature which abound in her writings.
To us, we must acknowledge, this freshness of the heart and entire freedom of the imagination, is very delightful. Miss Mitford is not a critic; but she is something a great deal better and more agreeable. She is of too enjoyable a temperament for a critic ”

“ They’ll lie low till it’s dark. Then they’ll have things all their own way.”
Ancram went pale again.
“But—but— D’you mean to say,” he stammered, “that we shall be—at their mercy?”
“Just that,” answered Lamont, who was busy lighting his pipe. “I say, Ancram, it’s different here now to that day at Courtland Mere. Slightly warmer, eh?”
He took a fiendish pleasure in the situation, as the incidents of that memorable day came before him once more. Then, and since, this man had held him up as a coward, this man standing here now with the blanched face and staring eyes. ”

“ And he paused, restraining himself with an effort.
“So, so, sir,” cried the General furiously. “So you dare to stand there and threaten your father! So you dare to talk to me in this tone! You dare to stand there in your damned strength and talk to a man twice your age in that strain—I wonder Heaven does not strike you dead as you do it. But go—get away out of my sight, let me never see you again. One who can so far forget all sense of duty is no son of mine. Go! Do you hear—go?” and he pointed towards the door, his hands shaking in a perfect palsy of rage.
Roland walked to the door. ”

“ I know. Fullerton’s a pig-headed chap—very. Still you needn’t put it on its true grounds. Make out you want to shop, or see a dentist, or something, and get your sister to back you up. It’ll be strange if you can’t work it between you. Only—do it—do it.”
She was impressed by his earnestness, and duly promised.
“Do look in and see us before you go out, Mr Lamont,” she said, as they regained the township. “When do you start?”
“About sundown. There’s a nice new moon, and it’s pleasanter to ride at night, also easier on one’s horse.” ”

“ But, although the sun shone down from a cloudless sky in the full glory of his midday splendour, his rays were without power, for there was a keen icy edge upon the air, stirred by a light breeze that was suggestive of exhilaration combined with warm clothing, and imparted a very entrancing touch of additional colour to the cheeks of the girl standing there.
She is a pretty girl, the large pupils of whose blue eyes lend to those attractive orbs a velvety softness which is in strange contradiction to the firm cut of the chin and the full though decided lips. ”

“ Mitford as amiable and pleasant; there was something cheering and hearty in his familiarity. The character is not uncommon; he was one of those good-looking, profligate spendthrifts, [Pg 285] who, reckless of consequences, bring misery upon their families and remain dear to their mothers and daughters.... Dr. Mitford often did kind actions, which it is unfair to ignore; he seems even to have had some sort of generosity, and the ease with which he parted with his money was one of his most unfortunate weaknesses. But Miss Mitford’s appreciation of her father was mostly due to filial devotion. ”

“ The scare had begun.
“You have got a jolly place here, Lamont, and you don’t seem overworked either, by Jove!” went on Ancram, with more than a dash of envy in his tone, as he gazed forth over the sunlit landscape, dotted with patches of bush, stretching away to the dark line of forest beyond, for the two men were seated in front of the house, beneath the extension of the roof which formed a rough verandah.
“Yes. You were talking of Courtland—well, I’m nearly as big a landowner here as the old Squire. Funny, isn’t it? As for being overworked, that comes by fits and starts. ”

“ She had been ill for some time, never having recovered from the shock of an accident that had occurred in 1853 while she was driving in a pony-chaise.
In reading the Life of Miss Mitford, which the Rev. Mr. L’Estrange has compiled from her letters, it is interesting [Pg 271] to mark the development of her character by her misfortunes. The indolent, novel-devouring young lady of Bertram House, with her school-girlish conceit, is a far less lovable person than the self-sacrificing woman who toiled uncomplainingly for a spend-thrift father in the cottage at Three Mile Cross. ”

“ Some people admire her immensely.”
“Pff!” ejaculated Lily, tip tilting her nose in withering scorn. “Too black.”
“Mr Campian likes them that way,” cackled Hazel. “At least, he used to,” added this imp, with a meaning look across the table at Nesta. “I was only humbugging. She isn’t really hideous. We’ll ride over too, eh, Lil?”
“No, you won’t—not much,” retorted Upward decisively. “You two are a precious deal too fond of running wild as it is, and you can just stay at home for once. Besides, we don’t want you at all. We may take on some chikór on the way, or start after some from Jermyn’s. ”

“ All of weight and position in the nation were resolved upon it, and none more thoroughly so than Nondwana. The king himself would be powerless to save him, even if he wished, and, indeed, why should he run counter to the desire of a whole nation, [Pg 274] and that on behalf of a stranger, some time an enemy?
Laurence, listening, felt his anxiety deepen. The net was closing in around him, had indeed already closed, and from it there was no outlet.
"See now, Lindela," he said gravely, his eyes full upon the troubled face of the girl, "if this thing has got to be, there is no help for it. ”

“ Mitford developed a most curious and inexplicable dislike to his daughter’s friends and acquaintances. Possibly he was growing tired of the congratulatory callers, but even so, he must surely have recognized that this sort of thing was the penalty exacted of popularity. “My father,” she wrote to William Harness, “very kind to me in many respects, very attentive if I’m ill, very solicitous that my garden should be nicely kept, that I should go out with him, and be amused—is yet, so far as art, literature, and the drama are concerned, of a temper infinitely difficult to deal with. ”

“ As a letter-writer, Miss Mitford has rarely been surpassed. Her "Life, as told by herself in Letters to her Friends," is admirably done in every particular. Few letters in the English language are superior to hers, and I think they, will come to be regarded as among the choicest specimens of epistolary literature. When her friend, the Rev. William Harness, was about to collect from Miss Mitford's correspondents, for publication, the letters she had written to them, he applied to me among others. I was obliged to withhold the correspondence for a reason that existed then ”

“ There, on a scanty supply of straw, a dim light glimmering through the bars of his cell, rendering the interior still more desolate, by revealing its wretchedness, lay Mitford—pale, emaciated, and bearing on his countenance the conviction, that the world and himself were now disjointed. Ever and anon the echoing wheels of some patrician chariot conveyed to his ear the mirth and gayety that [211] reigned without. But what was all this to him? His heart was never more to beat at the sight of beauty; ambition could no longer convey elevation to his mind. ”

“ Miss Mitford is merely echoing, with cheerful humor, the opinions of the very clever and distinguished men whom it was her good fortune to know, and who were all the more generous to her and to her sister toilers, because it did not occur to them for a moment that women claimed, or were ever going to claim, a serious place by their sides. There is nothing clearer, in reading the courteous and often flattering estimate of woman's work which the critics of fifty years ago delighted in giving to the world, than the under-current of amusement that such things should be going on. ”

“ And then her whole face would light up.
“What would you like to do this afternoon, old chap?” said Upward, as tiffin over, the bearer placed the cheroot box on the table. “Don’t feel up to going after chikór, I suppose?”
“Well, I don’t know. I think I do. But I left my shot gun down at Chotiali with my other things.”
“You’d much better sit still and keep yourself quiet for the rest of the day, Mr Campian,” warned Mrs Upward. “A nasty fall on the head isn’t a thing to be trifled with, especially in hot climates. ”

“ Most stories have,” answered Clare sweetly.
“Anyway,” struck in Driffield, “Ancram’s no sort of chap to go around talking of other people funking. I took him on patrol with me the other day from Lamont’s. Thought he’d like to see something of the country perhaps, and the Matabele. Incidentally, Lamont lent him a horse and all he wanted for the trip. Well, the whole time the fellow was in the bluest of funks. When a lot of the people came to indaba us, he kept asking whether they might not mean treachery, or had arms concealed under their blankets. ”

“ Miss Mitford was never the one to sit about the house, crying and moping over wreckage, the naturally corollary to which would have been an upbraiding of the wrecker, and from such an outrageous action—she would have so considered it—she ever refrained. Rather she preferred to apply herself more strenuously to her literary work wherein she might not only absorb herself but be laying the foundation of a career which, in time, she trusted might resuscitate their diminished fortunes and ensure a regular competence. ”

“ She recalled, for instance, their first meeting; how she had come in, hot and dishevelled—or at any rate feeling it—after a long scramble with the two small boys away over the veldt—to find, all unexpectedly, the man of whom she had heard so much as her father’s—then—intimate friend. She remembered every line of the expression of the clear-cut, high-bred face, the look of admiration that had momentarily leapt into his eyes directly they rested upon her—hot and dishevelled—in straight, kindly glance ”

“ Poor Roy sits unsuspectingly, with his head on his master’s knee, his soft brown eyes watching his master’s moody countenance with a wistful gaze.
Rat-tat, tat-tat-tat! goes the door knocker. Roy, who has become used to persons passing in and out, takes no notice beyond a slight cocking of his ears. A moment more, and the slipshod maid of all work appears, ushering in—
“A gentleman, sir.”
With a sigh Roland looks up at the “gentleman,” who might be a stableman or an under-keeper, but is a decent-looking, civil fellow enough.
“From Mr Marsland?”
“Yes, sir. Can I take the dog now, sir?” ”

“ The year was also notable for the arrival in Reading of Henry Hart Milman as Vicar of St. Mary’s, and of the Duke of Wellington, who came in order to look over Strathfieldsaye, Lord Rivers’ estate, some distance beyond that of the Mitfords along the Basingstoke Road, which the Nation proposed he should accept as a tribute of [196] its gratitude. “His Grace comes to look at it sometimes,” wrote Miss Mitford, “and whirls back the same day. He is a terrible horse-killer.” ”

“ This girl—this splendid-looking girl with the fine presence and striking personality—sold striped skirts and packets of snuff to natives, and, moreover, had not the slightest hesitation in volunteering the fact. More and more did she rise in his estimation.
“Miss Halse nearly shot a Kafir once in that same store, Mr Denham,” struck in the hostess, who, while talking to the trader, had taken in the other conversation.
“Not really?”
“Oh, it was nothing,” explained Verna. “A man came in once to trade—not one of our people, but a stranger. ”

“ No; nothing whatever. He had followed out Develin Hunt’s directions to the letter—sparing not himself. He had betaken himself, always with care and absence of ostentation, to the locality in which that worthy had pronounced his half-brother to be, but of the latter he could learn nothing. Once he had lighted on what seemed a clue, but it had ended in smoke. Then, acting upon another, he had taken ship for Australia, and had followed it up, with like result. Once more he had returned to South Africa, to meet again with no reward to his efforts. ”