A house was merely the starting point in the campaign required to launch the Milbankes’ cherished child. Judith, while not over-fond of her husband’s formidably well-connected sister, Elizabeth, had hastened to announce Annabella’s arrival in London to Lady Melbourne, and to express a candid hope that this most artful of hostesses might smooth the social progress of her niece. (It was while dining at her aunt’s palatial home in Whitehall that Annabella formed her first – and poor – opinion of Lady Melbourne’s giddy little daughter-in-law, Lady Caroline Lamb, as ‘clever in everything that is not within the province of commonsense’.)
Judith Milbanke was growing too old for the role of chaperone through evenings that often extended into the dawn, but Mary Gosford was delighted to help out with the task. Staying in the Gosfords’ fine house in Great Cumberland Place, or at Mary Montgomery’s snug abode in nearby Seymour Street, Annabella deepened her already settled friendship with the two Marys into an abiding love. Meanwhile, Miss Montgomery discreetly encouraged her beloved older brother, Hugh, to believe that Annabella might be prepared to consider a match. It was a notion which Annabella’s teasingly friendly manner towards tall, cheerful Hugh did nothing to discourage.
Confined to her bed for lengthy periods, Mary Montgomery read all that was current and received all who amused her (many failed the test), while fixing an attentive eye on the world beyond her window. For Mary Gosford, as for Annabella, leading as adventurous a cultured life as possible was an act of positive kindness to their abidingly inquisitive invalid friend. Chaperoned by Lady Gosford and often joined by Mrs George Lamb (Lady Melbourne’s clever and level-headed second daughter-in-law), Annabella performed her duty with a vengeance. Musical evenings; gazing upon painted panoramas that were cranked past the viewers (just as backdrops would later be on early cinema screens); attending high-minded lectures upon poetry and plays; visiting exhibitions of curious objects (Annabella was fascinated to see a meteorite that fell on Yorkshire earth in 1795 and was now on display in the London home of James Sowerby, the great fossil-collector of the day): being benevolent to a sick friend had never been more enjoyable.
But marriage, not culture, was the true purpose of Annabella’s three seasons in London. Candid, pretty, virtuous and clever, her prospects as an heiress made her – as she was calmly aware – the object of considerable interest. One catch existed. It was widely reported that Miss Milbanke’s wealthy uncle, Lord Wentworth, planned to make her his eventual beneficiary, in lieu of his own illegitimate son. (Nobody was informed that the fortune was to pass to Annabella only after her mother’s death.) But Viscount Wentworth remained in robust health, while the Milbankes were becoming steadily impoverished both by Sir Ralph’s political expenses and by the rapidly shrinking revenue from his north-country mines. The bailiffs were not yet knocking on the door, but Halnaby, by 1810, was proving impossibly expensive to maintain. The future of Seaham itself had grown uncertain. It was for this reason that Annabella’s three years on the London marriage market were frequently interrupted by the Milbankes’ retreat to a cheaply rented house in Richmond-upon-Thames, while Portland Place discreetly closed its doors. Without the hospitality of Lady Gosford and the precious connection to her Aunt Melbourne – lodged at the very heart of London society in her great house on Whitehall – it is not entirely clear how Miss Milbanke would have survived.
Money was needed. It was up to Annabella – there was no other way, bar the selling of land or interminably waiting for Uncle Wentworth to die – to secure her parents’ future comfort. A match must be made, and a good one.
COURTSHIPS
The first prospective alliance was to a man to whom Annabella’s friends believed she was ideally suited.
George Eden (his father had been elevated to the peerage as Lord Auckland), was the nephew of Sir John Eden, a former MP and close neighbour to the Milbankes in the north. In January 1810, the Edens had been devastated by a suicide: the body of George’s older brother, William, had been found floating in the Thames. Comfort lay in the knowledge that George himself was built of sterner stuff. Admired by his family, respected by his peers, George had always seemed more capable than poor, conflicted William of running the family’s handsome estate at Eden Farm, lying a few miles east of London.
Grave and high-principled, George Eden was so eager and assiduous a suitor that the Milbankes must have been ready to tear their hair out with frustration at Annabella’s steady refusal (it was the first of many such displays of obstinacy) to commit herself to anything deeper than a fond friendship. Her respect and affection for Mr Eden was beyond doubt. The most regular of her dancing partners, George was praised in Annabella’s journal as both just and wise. Lady Auckland, desperate to see George married to such a suitable young woman, assured Miss Milbanke (this was during Annabella’s second London season) that Mr Eden’s sisters thrived upon her ‘cheerful & improving society’, while expressing her heartfelt admiration for ‘a character so far beyond what any of your years possess’.
All was in vain.
George Eden’s misfortune was to be too perfect. Where, with such a paragon of virtue, lay the chance to exercise that redemptive benevolence which 18-year-old Annabella longed to bestow? How could Miss Milbanke foresee what an excellent wife she might one day make to the future governor-general of India? At the time
