June 4th, 1888.
Dearest Eva herself broached the subject of Mr Hardysides (whom she most improperly refers to by his christian name of Horace) during the time which I always devote to my correspondence. I kindly, but very firmly, explained my reasons for objecting to this marriage, absurd, preposterous, unthinkable, and indicated to the dear child that I should be much obliged if, in future, she would refrain from taking up my valuable time with such foolishness. I feel quite tired and done up, but I am thankful to think that this will not occur again. (It appears that Mr Hardysides is an artist, an acquaintance of dearest Feodora’s, and has several times lately been to stay at Compton Bobbin. I must speak to darling Edward about this.)
June 8th, 1888.
I feel so much agitated that I can hardly even hold my pen, to communicate my feelings to this Sacred Page. That any child of mine should behave with such ingratitude, such selfishness, such rank inconsideration for others, and such utter lack of modesty or self-restraint, is hard to record. This Little Book has been the recipient of many sorrows and some joys, but never before has it chronicled a Deed of this description. Let the facts then speak for themselves, for who am I to judge another sinner?
This morning, as I was pondering over the proofs of my ‘Peasant Children on Mount Snowdon’, Eva came into my morning-room, wearing as I noticed somewhat to my surprise, a new bonnet and shawl.
‘Are you going out, dearest child?’ I said, intending, if this should indeed prove to be the case, to give her one or two little commissions for me in the village.
‘Yes, dear Mamma,’ she replied, a guilty flush o’er-spreading (and, alas! with what reason) her usually somewhat pallid cheeks. ‘I have just come to acquaint you with the fact that I am now going out to be married, by special licence, to Horace Hardysides.’
I flatter myself that I maintained, on hearing these insolent words, an admirable composure.
‘Then Go!’ I said, in very awful tones, which I fear may ring in poor Eva’s ears to the hour of her death. ‘Go! But do not seek to return! When your Hardysides has proved himself false and unfaithful, this roof shall never shelter you again!’
‘Mamma!’ she cried imploringly, the full sense of her guilt coming over her, no doubt, for the first time.
‘Go!’ I reiterated. ‘Pray go!’
Hesitatingly, she turned and went.
Without another word, without even so much as a glance, she left her lonely, Widowed Mother for the embraces of a stranger. May he never use her so! How sharper than the serpent’s tooth –
I have sent in haste for dear Edward and told him to summon dear Arthur, George, Albert, Frederick and William, Alice, Julia, Maud and Louise. (Darling Beatrice is shortly expecting a happy event, and I refused to have her informed, as I fear that the shock might have disastrous consequences and jeopardize a little Life.) No doubt they will all, as ever, be very kind, but ah! how I long on such occasions for the guidance and wisdom of my own Sainted Josiah – I can only hope that in a very little while we shall once more be united – Above! This Happy and Dreadful thought has made me wonder how Eva will be enabled to meet her Father’s eye when her day shall come – if, indeed one so selfish and untruthful be granted entrance to the Heavenly Spheres. Poor, poor misguided Child.
Later.
My darling Edward has just been round to see me. He is very much perturbed, not only upon my account, though, naturally, I am his chief preoccupation in the matter, but also because of the disgrace which poor Eva’s dreadful action will have brought upon the whole Family. Dearest Feodora is immeasurably distressed (he says) and well she may be, at her share in this matter. It appears that she met this Mr Hardysides in London and asked him down to Compton Bobbin to paint a group of herself and the five eldest children. The picture was never finished, as darling Edward, when in Town, was taken to see some of the artist’s works; and finding that they were most dreadfully secular and unedifying, besides being devoid of the smallest genius, whether of composition, style or design, and finding also that Mr Hardysides had a most unsavoury and immoral reputation, he gave him his immediate congé. Since then it would appear that the wretch has been staying in the neighbourhood in order to complete his seduction – already half begun – of poor Eva. I am saddened and amazed, and can write no more for today.
9
Lord Lewes, who arrived that evening, was the true type of Foreign Office ‘young’ man. (Men remain, for some reason, ‘young men’ longer in the Foreign Office than in any other profession.) He was tall, very correctly dressed in a style indicating the presence of money rather than of imagination, and had a mournful, thin, eighteenth-century face. His correct and slightly pompous manner combined with the absence in his speech of such expressions as ‘O.K. loo’, ‘I couldn’t be more amused’, ‘We’ll call it a day’, ‘lousy’, ‘It was a riot’, ‘My sweetie-boo’ and ‘What a poodle-pie’ to indicate the barrier of half a generation between himself, Paul
