Lady Mitford

“ Lady Mitford said with a timid smile; "you have not given yourself any opportunity of testing your power of obedience to your father's dying wish. You cannot judge of how she would be disposed towards you." Once more she smiled timidly and sadly. "You would have little cause to fear ill-success, I should think."
"Except that in this case, Lady Mitford, the lady's affections are preëngaged, and she is doubtless a miracle of constancy."
"You speak bitterly, Sir Laurence, but your bitterness will pass, and your better nature will assert itself." ”

“ She's very nice, Alsager!"
There was a succulence in the tone in which these last words were spoken that sounded unpleasantly on Laurence's ear; so he said shortly, "I saw Lady Mitford for the first time to-night."
"Oh, she's very nice; a little too classical and statuesque and Clite-like for my taste, which leans more to the beauté-du-diable order; but still Lady Mitford's charming. Poor little woman! she's like the young bears, with all her troubles before her." ”

“ I cannot see all this, Lady Mitford, and pretend that I do not see it; and what is more, you do not wish that I could. You are too true, too womanly to form such a wish; and you are too honest to express it, in obedience to any laws of cant."
He went near to her; he bent down, he lowered his voice, he gently drew away the hands that hid her face from him; they dropped into her lap, nerveless and idle; the first tears he had ever seen in her eyes dimmed them now.
"You mean kindly, as you have always meant to me, Sir Laurence," she said; "but we cannot discuss this matter,--indeed we cannot. ”

“ There certainly was a wonderful charm about Lady Mitford, and, good heavens! think of a man having such a wife as that, and going off to sup with Bligh and Winton, who were simply two empty-headed roué jackasses, and Pontifex, who--Well, it was very lucky that people didn't think alike. Yes, that man Mitford was a lout, a great overgrown-schoolboy sort of fellow, who might be led into any sort of scrapes by--By Jove! that's what Dollamore had said with that horribly cynical grin. And Lady Mitford would have to run the gauntlet of society, as did most women whose husbands went to the bad. ”

“ Their wealth, the magnitude and style of their establishment, and the routine of life among persons in their position, afforded them facilities for a complete and tacit estrangement, such as the pressure of narrow circumstances would have rendered impossible. They went their separate ways, and were more strange and distant to each other than the merest surface acquaintances. Lady Mitford was, as it was natural to suppose she would be, the last person to hear particulars of her husband's conduct; but she watched him as closely as her limited opportunities permitted. ”

“ You think from all you have seen that she is not merely very charming in her innocence and simplicity, but really good; and you expect from certain signs which you detect, and with the nature of which you are familiar, that she will have to pass through a very perilous ordeal. It is obvious to you that in society, as it is now constituted, a woman of Lady Mitford's personal attractions and position must incur a very great deal of temptation. This, of course, would be to a great extent avoided if she were secure in the affections and certain of the attentions of her husband ”

“ If Lady Mitford had seen it, the light which its lurid fury would have flashed upon her might have been vivid enough to show her that in the rage and torment whence it sprung, she was avenged; but Georgie was not the sort of woman to be comforted by that view of the subject.
Lady Mitford made her request of Sir Charles, and was refused more peremptorily than her letter to Laurence Alsager had implied. The increasing rudeness of Mitford to his wife was characteristic of the man. He had neither courage, tact, nor breeding ”

“ The window shuts with an angry slam, the result of the sudden opening of a door. He looks up quickly as a lady enters—an elderly lady with a strong-minded face. She must have been very handsome in her youth—she is handsome yet, though her dark hair is only just beginning to turn grey, and her large eyes are clear and lustrous still; but the firm moulding of mouth and chin seems to show that her will is nearly, if not quite, as determined as that of her husband. She takes her place opposite to him at the table.
“I have a letter here”—he begins—“from Roland.” ”

“ Hall’s first impression of Miss Mitford.
I certainly was disappointed, when a stout little lady, tightened up in a shawl, rolled into the parlor in Newman Street, and Mrs. Hofland announced her as Miss Mitford; her short petticoats showing wonderfully stout leather boots, her shawl bundled on, and a little black coal-scuttle bonnet—when bonnets were expanding—added to the effect of her natural shortness and rotundity; but her manner was that of a cordial country gentlewoman; the pressure of her fat little hands (for she extended both) was warm ”

“ She is clever enough to know that wit and humour, sarcasm and finesse, are all thrown away upon him, if she is showing them off for her own sake." Of a surety Lady Mitford was rapidly learning to estimate Sir Charles aright. "Her beauty and her unscrupulousness have fascinated him, and all the rest is more likely to bore him than otherwise. If she were in love with him she might not understand this; but she is not in love with him--not even after her fashion and his own ”

“ You are too clever, Lady Mitford" (he understood the art of praising a woman for those qualities which she does not possess) , "to believe in or repeat the stupid methodistical cant which would limit a woman's perceptions, sympathies, and associations, to her husband only,--a worse than Eastern bondage; for it does not involve indulgence, and it sins against knowledge. You are not going to 'live forgotten and die forlorn,' because you have married a man who is certainly not much better than his neighbours, and who is really no worse. ”

“ The present Lady of the Manor, who loves old traditions, has done her part to preserve the records for her children.
So Miss Mitford walked from Three Mile Cross to Swallowfield to end her days, with these kind friends to cheer and to comfort her. Sir Henry Russell was alive when she first established herself, but he was already suffering from some sudden seizure, which she, with her usual impetuosity, describes in her letters as a chronic state of things. After his death, his widow, the Lady Russell of those days, was her kindest friend and comforter. ”

“ To this excessively plain but undoubtedly charming and accomplished woman was the young surgeon introduced, “being easily persuaded by friends more worldly wise than he to address himself to a lady who, although ten [15] years his senior, had every recommendation that heart could desire—except beauty.”
She certainly had every recommendation that the heart of George Mitford could desire, for “though a very brief career of dissipation had reduced his pecuniary resources to the lowest ebb, he was not only recklessly extravagant, but addicted to high play.” ”

“ 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 one or two are happily safe, carried by the angels of the Press to little altars and pinnacles all their own; but the majority of hard-working, intelligent women, 'contented with little, yet ready for more,' may they not in moments of depression be allowed to picture to themselves what their chances might have been had they only been born half a century earlier?
Miss Mitford, notwithstanding all her troubles (she has been known to say she had rather be a washerwoman than a literary lady) , had opportunities such as few women can now obtain. ”

“ The crossing or the temper?” said Mona. “I’ve got a fine old crusted stock of the latter myself.”
“You have,” assented Roden.
“That’s rude.”
“Your own doing,” was the ready rejoinder. “You left me the choice of two evils, though, Miss Ridsdale. Wouldn’t it be ruder still to contradict a lady?”
“Go on, you two hair-splitters!” laughed Grace. “Mr Musgrave, I’ve put you in the same room you had last time. You know your way. Supper will be ready directly.”
“And you’d better turn on a fire in the sitting-room, Grace,” said Suffield. ”

“ Palmer’s wife was the Lady Madelina, a daughter of the Duke of Gordon, and she and Miss Mitford became very good friends. Miss Mitford’s anxiety for Palmer’s success was due not so much because of his politics as for the promise he had given her of following in the footsteps of his predecessor and keeping her well supplied with “franks,” if elected. His promise he, doubtless, intended to keep, but as Miss Mitford despairingly wrote: “he has the worst fault a franker can have: he is un-come-at-able. One never knows where to catch him. ”

“ Miss Mitford describes it as having been fitted up at “a most immense expense; upwards of five thousand pounds. It is indeed very superb.” The lighting and arrangement were so cleverly [125] carried out that visitors were frequently deceived and quite believed that they were gazing on original oil-paintings instead of needlework copies.
“I was at Hamlet’s” [the jewellers] “yesterday with Fanny, and summoning to my aid all the philosophy of a literary lady, contrived to escape without purchasing anything—but it was a hard trial. The newest fashion is beautiful. ”

“ What were you saying, Claverton?” he continued, making a playful cut at a native urchin with his whip, which the boy dodged, and gambolled away swinging his sheepskin kaross and grinning from ear to ear.
“I was saying—would it surprise you greatly to learn that I am about to perpetrate matrimony?”
Payne whistled. “N-no—I don’t know—most fellows fall victims sooner or later. And after all the knocking about you’ve had it’ll do you good to settle down for a bit. By the way—if it’s not an impertinent question—who’s the lady?”
“Lilian Strange.” ”

“ In the compilation of the book many sources of information have been drawn upon and the author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to all who have so kindly helped him in his labours. Chief among these has been Lady [6] Russell of Swallowfield, who, in addition to supplying much material, has made the author still further indebted by her acceptance of the dedication of the book. Miss Rose G. Kingsley has also to be thanked for copies of letters written by Miss Mitford to her father, Charles Kingsley, who lies buried at Eversley, in the neighbourhood with which the book deals largely. ”

“ They had both had the same chances, but different mothers, and the younger man had gone utterly to the bad.
“Did you say the young lady’s bicycle was smashed, Wagram?” said the Squire at last, reverting to the adventure.
“All to smithereens. But I’ve drawn up a wire to Gee and Vincent to send her the latest thing up to date, and that sharp. I’ve also written Warren to let her have one on hire until it comes.”
“Yes, that’s quite right. But I doubt if it’ll end there. Calmour’s quite capable of threatening an action for damages with a view to compromise. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He professed himself profoundly interested in everything explained to him.
“I saw you ride, Lamonti,” he said. “Whau! but you did pick up the little bits of wood with the long spear. That was great—great. But the other Inkosi was greater.”
“Yes, the other was greater, Qubani, but what made me miss that stroke was joy at seeing my father, the greatest of all izanusi in our midst.”
“Whau!”
“Mr Lamont, do come and help us with the prizes. They balloted for who should distribute them, and Lucy was chosen. Do come and stand by us and help. They are going to begin now.” ”

“ Her keen perceptions detected it in a moment, and she would occasionally visit its expression with a strong spice of hereditary satire. She could not remember the time when her father had treated her otherwise than as a rational and accountable being, and the time when he should cease to do so would never come—of that she was persuaded. Nor need it be inferred that she was “strong-minded,” “advanced,” or aspiring in any way to the “blue.” Far from it. She had plenty of character, but withal she was a very sweet, lovable, even-tempered, and thoroughly sensible girl. ”

“ 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?” ”