Ulverton Read online

  I have asked how the Norcoat boy is and he mends, thank God. I hope he is slow at his Latin that you might remain longer with him, as long as my life.

  I am,

  yr deepest loving,

  A.C.

  April 12th, 1743.

  My sweet W.,–

  I am at my bureau that you admired so, inlaid with the ivory herons you told were your soul’s five desires, and touch your letter with my cheek as I write this. Its perfume is yours – how long in your pocket?

  My head aches to read of your delay in returning. The boy is mended. Can you not be contracted for his Latin on the instant? I cannot think the scarlet tires the brain so that one must remain without schooling for a month after. I have your ribband in my hair. I say to Nurse that ’tis from my childhood. It is indeed true that as an infant I and my sister crept up to the top of the tower at Stagley, and forced the window ope, and let our ribbands fall to the lawn, tiny red things – mischief was ever in our nature. I have kept it since. It binds the hair of my dear Phoebe, you remember her – who smiles always shyly from my mantelshelf, tho’ she have one eye all cracks, & her dress be torn – my anger once – I am capable of anger. Dear Stagley! Yours plucked from your letter smells, I fancy, of your powder. When you come we must loosen our ribbands and let fall our hair, and play the savages.

  Each morning I sit at the window – and lift it – and peep till I am blinded, for the light in here otherwise – only of candles – is so dim even by day I grow suited to it, and the sun rising above the rim of our estate (it is all furze and sheep-bells there) quite takes my sight from me. The smells of the garden soothe me, and blow the fustiness away for a period. This morning was all dewy, and they have cut the grass and rolled it, and the perfume was exemplary. You worry that my cold will worsen by the window, but it has not done yet. Yesterday a fox (I saw it clear) ran along the wood-edge for a good minute. I felt tenderness and esteem for its cunning.

  I dream of raspberries and mutton. Also of you: those are bold dreams indeed! I cannot help my dreams. Our Chaplain came in this afternoon, to talk of my being churched at the month’s end, and of Charles’s baptism: he has a scratchy, fussy manner, and smells of cupboards. I could not help but think, as he went on, of what perdurable state he would consign me to did he but know the half! I do not like him – he was my father-in-law’s man – he looks at you over the top of his spectacles, but at one’s forelocks, never at the eyes. How few of the family of this great house do I feel anything for but a quiet despising – doors are ever opening and shutting, I hear them, but I do not care a fig for those who turn the handles. This whole house is rooms of India paper and wooden-ness and fuss.

  Our baby does well. I feel such affection for the creature it cannot but be yours, tho’ it screams. He is fat now, like a cushion. The wet-nurse has such plump breasts I cannot fear that he lacks but rather has excess. When I held him yesterday he clasped my breast through the silk within his tiny lips – it was quite paining. I don’t think my breasts, being sharp, will ever be likely to support such mettle, if I were to choose to feed, which Lady Osborn tells me is the talk of the most fashionable at present. One is so in the rear here – of the mode. My Lord would not support any change in my dugs, so that is that.

  Pray write soonest –

  I am,

  ever loving yrs,

  A.C.

  April 31st ’43.

  Dearest William, –

  Tore your letter open at the harpsichord – I told you ’twas to be delivered – they chipped a leg upon the stairs but ’tis tuned – I press it without consolation, the sound muffled in this swaddling tightness, but I play to chase Time faster before me. Wall entered with a bundle and it was but a breath before the rest were scattered upon the keys when I espied your hand: your curls and extravagances.

  They are blotched by my tears – religiously spilt. You were amiss to pause in penning a reply and more amiss, double amiss, to write so curt. Do you not know how thin I have become? I look in the glass and see how tiresome I am, poor pale thing, to vex you with my sentiments and my passions. ’Tis the pier-glass with the cupids. Alas, one has a wing chipped. Is that hurt yours or mine? I cannot bear to see it. I will have it took down to the breakfast room, where it will serve my husband’s vanity. He is always at his neckerchiefs.

  Why can you not come earlier? You must be burning for me but I daresay London does not lack a dousing. Lady Mortlake has cut a pretty figure of fun in the papers. A monstrous fortune she is – but she has scattered her favours as monstrously. They say there is not a dawn has passed this last year she has not combed her hair of a fresh entanglement. We have the Gazetteer brought here by chaise – I do not rust overmuch from lack of scandal.

  My candle gutters now.

  There – it is out. They let me only three – it is to rest me – I live and breathe in a kind of wavering gloominess that throws awful spectres upon this brown paper – it is the ugliest – his father’s taste was all for buff – ’tis like living in a jug.

  Alas! this will not move you, I know it. You don’t in the least care for me. The female sex are all cloth to be cut anywise. My dress for the Christening was thought for you to gaze on – you are invited with the Squire – nothing more natural than his boy’s tutor should be invited next him. White sattin – with about the bosom: hibiscus and China oranges in yellow chenille – and rough sheaves of corn between – & twining stuff in gold threaded along the arms – that are puffed so light the whole may impart a pleasing effect of breeze and motion, that you say you favour in nature, when the trees are not stiff and artificial but fanned by gales. It is all done for below £100. I will be Diana, but not chaste.

  I shall make you laugh – that will bring you. You laugh in the throatiest manner. How I stifled it that night upon yon bed! When you are returned and I am out we shall seek some mossy glade – and under the moon languish with our sickness. But laugh at this: I have had the Chaplain sent away to the London house for a month. There is no Chapel there – he will be bored as a mouse without a pantry. ’Tis I did it: he came in last week with his fuss in his fingertips and his greasy collar grating upon his bony neck and sermoned me ’till I near wept. When he had departed I ventured to say to Miss Fieldhouse (who was ever present, dull crow) that the Chaplain’s cheek was high-flushed – and his voice had a tubercule clatter to it – and I was fearful. I said this in the silliest manner, as one lightly throws a crust to a beggar at the gate, without consequence or thought, but she devoured it as the beggar and on the instant was gone to see. She reported back forthwith that she had come upon him in the Chapel clearing his throat – but I know he has always had this habit, it is as my husband’s blowing air through the nose, a sign of nervous tendency – and she informed Wall, who did the right things – has had the man sent packing, for a while. A new Chaplain is ordered: some mouldy curate, I suppose, out of some dusty shelf.

  Did you make merry noises at that? I fear not. I am deep out of spirits with melancholia and my cold. My son does hardly cheer me: he screeches like a big door, tho’ he is ever tiny and round. Talking on screeches, there was a concert party held in the Dining Room, three nights past – & held to be very agreeable to all – most my husband’s gaming friends. I heard it in snatches through my door. The viols played my heart.

  My sister at Stagley has had sent me a curious present: a black. He was part of my poor Aunt Eliza’s affairs, that being a sorry clutch of old fashion jewels – horses – parcels of yellow gloves – fire-forks – a Hudson that caught her to the like – a mothy Felletin – six chairs that were more scuff than velvet: this the whole left us. My sister did not know I am still confined. He is named Leeward after his natural abode tho’ I have not heard of it. He is about eleven. I thought Leeward the windless side of ship – that is what I recall my brother told me, the one that is in Barbados and always at ropes. I would not wish to go on the sea. I have not seen the boy but Wall tells he is eager tho’ she is no lover of blacks. I
have to change his collar, it has Aunt Eliza’s name inscribed. My husband thinks him to have evil tendencies – he saw three blacks on the gibbet at Crowthorne from the carriage, the coachman told him they had robbed the inn there and sent the lady into a vapour from which she is not recovered. But I will be rid of him the moment the man in him cracks his voice.

  Alack that is the bell for tea – I can just hear – I shall miss the post: I must write three letters for your one or there is no bundle to muffle yours in.

  My husband behaves exceeding well, tho’ his complaint makes him tear at the servants.

  I prattle only to conceal my anguish – nay, my want to see you – it don’t ease with this scribbling.

  Pray return soonest.

  My love,

  I am,

  yr desirous,

  A.C.

  May 3rd ’43.

  My dearest only William, –

  Alack how blustery this May began – I espied on it from my chink and saw the poor hinds with their herds upon the ridge quite blown about. Did I tell you – no I think not – how I saw a village maid and her swain in a field at our perimeter ply their love – she sporting with him – all turfy dalliance, he bashful – each gathering flowers then scattering them over one another – dark-hued but a kind of native prettiness she had, tho’ the light was still wan and they were far. Perhaps I painted the scene with innocent colours, but such melancholy pangs did this sylvan lovemaking bring into my heart I near fainted at the window, and sought my salts.

  Your letter did not cheer me. You cannot think of going to Italy yet. This Pompey – is it near Florence? It is insupportable, the thought of you preferring to wield a spade in the dim ancients’ rubbish than to lying with me. Has life become quite so umbrageous that the long-dead are become more dear to you than she who muses on little else but upon your appearance below my window? I feel almost angered, ’tis true. But you know your own affairs best.

  No, I cannot think but that London has tempted you from your greener pangs. You would say to me how you dreamed of these simpler charms – of Virgil’s shepherd lads piping on their reeds, and did sing to me once a pastoral song, and that summer night we did gaze upon the swans from my Dressing Room – there was a moon – they had a radiance from their wings that stopped our hearts – O I have writ a poem on that night – and rent it to shreds and cast it upon the fire – and writ another – and folded it in my bosom, where it pricks me still.

  O William.

  Perhaps ’tis among the olive groves you will find your nymph. You did admire ours upon the plinth by the temple, the one that holds herself, startled – in marble. You have forgot already. You murmured in my ear in the Dressing Room – do you recall – how its silver brilliance on the lawn was a famished soul yearning for love, and then folded me in your arms. You said your only fortune was yourself – and your books – & your cat. When you weary of the heat & the fevers and the pots and pans of Rome, you will blubber back to me, smelling of thymy shores no doubt. And then I will close my window tight upon you, even if it may catch your knuckles.

  I am angry at you.

  A knock at my door – it is my husband – he was sober – he kissed me upon the neck – he leaves his paint upon my cheek – a red bruise – and departs to Bath. So. This is how men serve. It was always thus. I hid this paper – he enquired what letter I was writing – I tickled him beneath the nose with my pen – I told him it was my lover, but the aunt’s was uppermost – he did laugh at my feint – we laughed together – his breath on my ear – his house is scrubbed thrice a fortnight, but his mouth all neglected – my nostrils quiver at its stench – bacco and spirits and gaming – it is old cabbages and burnt milk in the scullery. He is hardly decent tho’ clouded in powder. I am too severe. ’Tis he brought back from London last week figs and pomegranates of jewels that he laid upon my table himself – for he does love his nymph.

  I must cease immediate – I am too choked. Italy! Our native haunts, our soft lawns mean nothing to you, tho’ they enfold your truest heart –

  A.C.

  May 25th, ’43.

  Dear William, –

  You profess love to me, but this prisoner is yet unlocked. My cold has worsened – I am hoarse – perhaps sweet Charlie will have no mother to caress him but a ruddy nurse only – do I frighten you?

  Forgive me. I am well, hale as you are. But I am still Confined. My cold has been chased off by the caudle, or by the evacuations Dr Mackernes did me last week. You say the seal upon my letter to you was broke. I give my bundles to a dull-witted maid – she dusts my room, no other – who is not the prying kind. But mayhap another of the great family has smelt a plot and means to rub cash from me. Once Wall did ask who Mr W. S. was and I told her – ’twas a solicitor of my brother’s affairs in Barbados, that lives in London. But I blushed. I did not tell you earlier, I was too fearful what you might think. I cannot tell of Wall’s thoughts – she has no features to speak of, she is scribbled in chalk. She is a broiling hen.

  I am to remain in this wretched room another fortnight. Why, I cannot rightly say. The doctor will have it. The orchard blossoms are all dashed, I hear, in the nipping gales of last week. How I miss their sweet fragrance, tho’ the earliest mornings at my chink are sweeter than any dream of paradise. The lawn is greener sure, in its dewy state. I wish the stables were farther off: their odours mingle if the wind is southerly. The woods are verdant now. I saw the vixen again, she is not yet caught. A redbreast took pity on me and perched at the sill, and warbled his tiny heart near to bursting – this only yesterday. I have put my rose oils on the hinges, and the shutter is silent. But you are not come. All about me the house rumbles like a muffled drum. No, it is mostly shut from me, the noise. Silent as the Stygian pool. I read little now. I am moroser. Why do I not fade away, like the night shadows in the woods? I am hearty well – in body. This gloomy room frets out of me any inkling of comfort. I know every inch of the stucco: it goes about and about my head. It is old fashion, that makes it more insupportable – my head aches from it. All shields, warlike in a lady’s room. I stitch wearily, tho’ my boldest yet: the Four Seasons, at my Lord’s request, for his settee in the Dressing Room, that is worn black & greasy from his too much sitting. ’Tis all husbandry, took straight out the freshest pattern book – got from Mrs Price – but so slow do I dip and tug that the wretched ploughman must eternally plod, it seems, ’pon my lap – ’till either he or his maker drop. I have sent for new silk for the bed. The old is too blue. I am sick of the oils – but for one – a Fête-Champêtre – for Fools – they make merry above my canapé – I dance with them in the gloom.

  Take the note enclosed to Hapgood’s in the Strand and buy a waistcoat, if as you say yours is threadbare. Don’t mention who you are. I like crimson sattin the best, tho’ you might not favour me with a view of it. I have sent invitations for the Christening. You are bound to it – the Squire, wretched man, will not dare keep you away, he don’t care for bad form. Do not come too showy. Dress your hair careful, in a half-bob. Don’t wink at me.

  You are bound to it, William.

  I don’t care if they read this. Do what they will.

  Here is half your ribband.

  Lady Oxford was here. She is out of mourning. I have no other news.

  I am,

  yr forlorn,

  A.C.

  June 5th.

  Dearest W.,–

  Send no more post here. I smell a plot, or a discovery. Each week they lengthen my confinement – I cannot see or know why. Dr Mackernes I think to be in on it. He would purge his liver for a fee. He has bled me thrice since we last wrote – I feel weak and dismal – Mrs Danvers they evacuated till she was a husk, for her distraction after her delivery. I shall burst in this confine. Likewise, and for this reason, I would wish our dear sweet little baby unwrapped of his swaddling, but Nurse Fieldhouse will not hear of it – calls it new-fangled liberties – so he may only wave his arms about from yesterday. I held his han
d – ’tis like ivory, only warm – his arteries beat with our blood in the wrist – he does just exist but already how favourable I feel towards him, more than to other little creatures I have encountered, such as the daughter of Mrs Danvers, whom I felt nothing for at Christmas.

  I tell you this that you might beat with a fatherly devotion.

  I would wish my ink watered – my glass is empty, I have run out of sand also – but I fear any interruption – I will blow on this till it not blot and I have the seal-wax from this morning – shall hand it to the maid with a coin that she be persuaded to give it to the black boy – he combs my Pekes but they will not let him in – they will never think to address their suspicions to him. Before it was Hodgetts the groom of chambers ’twas handed to by the maid – she is called Hambling – she is devoted to me and has too dull wits for intrigue, but Hodgetts wears gold garters and is insufferably proud – he has ambitions – Hambling has a wart the size of a guinea upon her forehead, but Hodgetts has told Wall that Bint has taken a great fancy to her, for otherwise she is shapely – Wall told me, and I told her I did not care if they married, or did not, I was so weary. Hambling must tell the black boy to conceal it – I have named him Scipio, and then again Leeward, for Scipio is my husband’s stallion – Leeward is then to give it to Mabberley – he being the hoary-headed gardener brought with me from Stagley, who cut roses for me when I was merely babbling, twenty year past, kind old soul – he will hang for me if I wished it. He takes it to the chaise. There – I have it in a nutshell they shall never crack.