Wednesday, December 7, 1831

 1831 December

Wednesday 7

7 1/4

12 55/..

No motion.  Fair morning – high, boisterous wind – F 52° at 7 1/2 and 8 1/2 a.m. –

Out at 8 35/.., having staid 5 minutes to eat a bun – walked to the 3 mile stone on the London road and back at 10 35/.. – Stormy walk – high, boisterous, southwesterly wind – Could sometimes scarcely stand, and rain –

Changed my dress – At breakfast with Miss Hobart at 10 50/.. – breakfast in 1/2 hour – staid down till 12 – then came up to my room and read the newspaper all thro’ till 1 –

Went down for a minute or 2 to pay Miss H- Hobart for the last 2 weeks – at my desk at 1 1/4 –

 We are now very good friends, and I thought less of her in my walk this morning than I have done in any walk for long –

From about one and a half to four and three quarters wrote a second 1/2 sheet full to Lady Stuart de Rothesay – chit chat -- ***

‘Our days pass on in one unvaried tenour of quiet comfort, a calm which contrasts agreeably with the constant and perhaps feverish excitement of perpetual change of place – We have plenty of employment and amusement – our Globe in a morning, and German, and walking, and letter-writing, and, in an evening, music and reading aloud –

I really think Vere better – the bad cold she had at first seems to have done no harm beyond the moment; but that Hastings is the  place to make a complete cure in one winter is, at least, problematical – wrote Duke, the apothecary here, thinks what ever mischief there is, is confined to the trachea – he makes us walk instead of taking carriage, exercise which he says, would not do 1/2 the good; and we have not been kept in the house by bad weather, more than 3 or 4 days since our being here –  yet – it is surely the most windy place I ever was in – Our smooth-cut, perpendicular cliff, 60 feet high, close behind us, is no shelter against the South and Southwest winds, said to prevail here from October to January; and indeed they have prevailed, and do prevail most determinedly, both out of doors and in, for the houses here are anything ‘but exclusive – ’Tis well for us, these winds are the most innocent of their kind –

Our mean temperature (in our low sheltered situation) is said to be 4 degrees warmer than that of the environs of London, and two degrees warmer than that of the city, during the coldest months – We are told, however, not to regret Nice – Vere had a long letter this morning from Lady Northland, who does not like it at all, – says the mistral is terrible, and there is no Society, and the Fosters have done quite right to go to Genoa –  The Turin Correspondence is just now rather business-like – tho’, from all I hear of it, I cannot help being struck at the little acquaintance each one seems to have with the history of her own affairs –

It was a great disappointment that the copies of the correspondence with Lord Buckinghamshire did not arrive at the Lodge while you were there – but the casual observation in the letter to Vere, that she had best let her solicitor settle the matter for her, did a world of good – you can hardly imagine the difficulty it had been to persuade her to this, even tho’ first suggested in no very gentle terms by my Lord himself – I really thought she would have been worried into giving the thing up; and even now Vere’s letter to Mr. Frampton still remains to be written – She would tell you there would be sixteen years interest due her much  on £2400, making altogether £4320, a sum I feel quite sure of their thinking too large to be neglected –

On the subject of other money matters, she has had two very kind letters from Mr. Sullivan who, on giving up the guardianship, seems to have inadvertently omitted  transferring the property into Vere’s name, and giving in any accounts, so that no legal release to him was, or could be executed – the transfer is to be done as soon as possible; and Mr. Jones will  send the release here for signature; but in answer to Vere’s suggestion that Mr. Jones will, of course, send the accounts at the same time, Mr. Sullivan thinks this out of the question, and gives so little information on this subject, or on that of the Branston Estate, that Vere is no wiser than she was before – Perhaps Lord Stuart knows how the Hobart half of this estate was settled – whether on all the children of Vere’s father equally or not, and whether other branches of the family were sharers with them or not – From a letter of 2 or 3 years ago, it seems, Lady Foster then fancied, there must be some deficit, which, for  some reason or other, she rated at £12,000, as the Branston estate sold for £96,000, and Mr. Jones accounted for little more than £43,000’ –

The remaining 1 2/3 pages of the 2nd half sheet mere chit chat – Speak of the wind as tremendous today – ‘I would gladly be at East Highcliffe – But ‘you are to furnish it completely’  Alluding to furniture live and dead – My love to the dear girls and believe me, my dear Lady Stuart, always very truly yours, A Lister – The first 1/2 sheet, tho’ written yesterday,  dated today – This letter has been a great pother to me but I think it will very well at last.

From 4 55/.. to 5 3/4, wrote all but the 1st 6 lines of today, sealed and enclosed my letter to  ‘The Lady Stuart de Rothesay’ under cover to ‘Lord Stuart de Rothesay, 3 St. James’s Square, London’

From 5 3/4 to 7 10/.., wrote 3 pages and ends and first page crossed to ‘Mrs. Lawton, Lawton hall, Lawton, Cheshire’ and sent it to the post at 7 10/.., along with the letter to Lady S- –

Chit chat to Mariana in answer to her last – asked again for Eustace if she could spare him, but not to mind saying she had rather keep him at home, as I could get him much under the published price – In reply to ‘Cameron has all to learn’ in housekeeping, answered yes! and ‘I much fear she will never astonish either Mariana or me by any unheard of proficiency, even in time to come – Nous verrons.’ Kind letter – very anxious about Mariana – Sadly so, when too long in hearing from her, and glad to return to our old regular plan of once a fortnight –

Dressed – Dinner at 7 35/.. in 25 minutes – Music – Coffee at 8 3/4 – Played and won one hit at backgammon – From 10 1/4 to 11 read aloud from page 370 to page 412, end of chapter 21, volume iii Gibbon –

Came upstairs at 11 1/2 – she ten minutes in my room. Very good friends. Laughed and said how she had scolded me three times, but that I hoped she would have no opportunity of doing it again.  Speaking of the Percivals before coffee and their having a thousand a year each, Miss H- somehow said they could afford to be three hundred a year less agreeable than she could and I could afford to be six times less agreeable as I had six thousand a year. I took no notice  apparently of this, but it shews me for the first time what they seem to rate me at –

Stormy day – boisterously high wind – very high surf – and repeated showers pelting against the windows – Stormy and rainy tonight now at 12, at which hour, F (in my balcony) 51° –

‘The Miss Percivals, 14 Pelham Crescent’ called this morning about 2, 1st time, and left their card – George in his for-ever stupidly about callers, tho’ I had told him a day or 2 ago to say when anyone asked for me I was not at home, kept the Miss P-s waiting downstairs till he had come up to see if I was at home – I was busy and had not got my hair dressed – I fear they would think me not very civil --

  

WYAS Finding Numbers  SH:7/ML/E/14/0159 and SH:7/ML/E/14/0160