Alice Rivers, or, passages in the life of a young lady. Written by herself

Front matter

ALICE RIYERS. VOL I ALICE RIVERS; OR, PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF A YOUNG LADY. WRITTEN BY HERSELF. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOLUME I. LONDON : W. SHOBERL, PUBLISHER, 20, GREAT MARLB0R0UGH STREET. 1852. GROVE, PKINTEK, TRINITY STREET, SOUTHWARK. TO ALL YOUNG LADIES AVHO ARE IN HASTE TO BE MARRIED ; THESE VOLUMES, ACCOMPANIED BY THE FRIENDLY SUGGESTION THAT • BY OTHERS FAULTS WISE FOLKS CORRECT THEIR OWN ," ARE, IN ALL GOOD WILL, AND AVITH EVERY GOOD WISH, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR.

Chapter I

Madame de Stael was accustomed to say of a certain individual of her acquaintance, " I am never weary of that man's conversation, he talks with so much zest about him self; " and certainly, if one can but get people to tell us faithfully, hoAv they feel, how they think, in a word, Iioav their minds are, or have been, actuated and influenced by this great maze of mystery, this strife of good and evil, of joy and sorrow, of beauty and deformity, which we call human life, they Avill tell us something in which our fellowship of nature must necessarily incline us to take an interest. VOL. I. B ALICE RIA'ERS. 2 I sit down then to write my own history — a woman's history— and here, if my reader should be of the nobler sex, I can conceive him to close my book at once ; for I am well aware that in the opinion of the greater part of the world, the history of a woman may be comprised in three Avords; — love, disappointment, or marriage; — and that to wire-draw these three words into a volume, is only to amplify phrases, or, in simple parlance, to spin yarns Avhich it Avould be a loss of time and trouble to peruse.

Far be it from me to say that this might not be true ; but as it sometimes happens in the course of events and circumstances, that women think and feel even more acutely than men, as it ahvays happens that they have to take a larger share in the domestic exercises and vicissitudes of life ; — and happen what may, as they are re sponsible beings amenable to the laws of the land, and ecpially with the other sex required to exercise the art of self-government, it seems but reasonable to give them credit for possessing such mental powers as may entitle them to obtain a hearing, if they think they have anything to say which may be useful to their fellow-creatures. It may possibly be thought but becoming that I should disclaim all idea of this being the case in the present instance ; but besides that I should consider it very bad policy to preface my narrative with doubts as to its being Avorth reading, I should not speak the truth were I to say so, for if I did not think my history a somewhat interesting one, I should not have attempted to Avrite it.

Hoav far indeed, the blindness and strength of self-love may operate in leading me to suppose that to be interesting to others, which contemplated from their point of Ariew, may be feeble and vapid, I cannot venture to say. I will only therefore state that, believing some profitable lessons may be learned from my experience, I humbly and simply offer it for the use of those whom it may concern. No doubt the reader will anticipate from this rather solemn exordium, that he is about to be addressed by an ancient lady with the weight of at least threescore years of care and consideration on her mind; an apprehen- B ALICE RIArERS. sion from which I shall forthwith relieve him, by stating my age at this present writing, to be no more than thirty-two. "No more than thirty-two, and yet pretend to talk of experience !" he possibly replies.

" Patience kind friend," say I, " you little know unless you have made the experi ment, what a quantity of actual bonit-fide knowledge of human life, and human joys and sorrows, may have been acquired even at the age of thirty-two; more particularly Avhen apprenticed early to the world, as happened to be my lot. But to be no further tedious, I Avill go at once into my narration. I was the youngest but one of fifteen children, not indeed all living, but the greater part, that is to say nine of them, remaining to gladden ancl sometimes to sadden, the hearts of our parents and of one another, Avhile I was an inmate of my paternal home. I Avould desire to be understood when I speak of " gladden and sadden," as meaning only the usual ups and downs of almost every domestic circle; for Ave Avere none of us ill tempered or unhappy children, but rather the reverse, and as fond of, and kind to one another, as boys and girls coidd be, who did not get always as much to eat as they wished, and perhaps wanted, and whose early lot it was, to have their share of human frailty aggra vated by the daily trials Avhich the poverty of their parents entailed upon them.

The poverty however, was by no means the heaviest trial to me, or to my youngest sister, my constant playmate and companion ; at least not that part of our indigence which consisted in an insufficiency of food. This exercise of humanity we bore with great equanimity ; but not to be dressed like young ladies, not to have flounced trousers, and large undulating leghorn hats, (which last mentioned article of attire let me observe, en passant, is not to be taken for a modern invention, as I well remember the stirrings of envy and ambition it excited in the bosom of my sister and myself more than five-and-twenty years ago) not to have sandals on our feet, and in a word, not to be invested in the paraphernalia of the three Miss Redburns, and the two Miss Sedleys, and various other pairs and trios of Misses about our own age, whom we daily saw in their much-admired and enviable costume, disporting on the green near our house, and glancing Avith most superlative contempt at our attire, as at a humble distance Ave con templated their grand superiority — not to be in the circumstances of these happy young ladies, was our heaviest exigence and never ceasing trial.

The very term " younglady," had some thing sublime and celestial in it to our apprehension; a "young lady," could never, as we conceived, be anything else than a half-wor shipped personage ; and to imagine ourselves such a one, though but for five minutes at a time, was as near an approach to Elysium as we could form any idea of. The two Miss Sedleys rejoiced in the names of Julia and Adelaide ; or rather Miss Julia, and Miss Adelaide; for never Avere they summoned away from their scornful contemplation of my sister and myself, (and summoned away by their haughty nursemaid they speedily Avere, as if contamination were to be conveyed by the in tercourse of a glance) — never I say, was this done, without a most emphatic pronunciation of the prefix Miss to their names. Miss Julia and Miss Adelaide then vanished bodily ; — but their names and natures remained behind for Kitty and I to adopt ; — which, be sure, we did ; and for the next half hour, who so happy as we were? — re-acting what we had seen in the Miss Sedleys.

Kitty, with Robert's old straAv hat, the crown half torn out, but the brim beautifully nodding up and doAvn leghorn fashion, and I with tAvo old long sleeves meta morphosed into an elegant pair of young lady like-trousers, and calling each other Julia and Adelaide. If the mere phantasmagoria of " young ladyism" was thus enchanting, what must have been the prospect of actually becoming en listed as a novice and disciple in the mystic science. That it should fall to my lot too, when the determination of the party who was to promote me in the scale of destiny, was Avholly directed to adopting Kitty, as the youngest and therefore probably, the most practicable of the family party in the way of mental and moral civilization ! One can only say of such things as the shortest way of dis posing of them, " that they are to be." In explaining how they came to be, it will be necessary for me to relate a little of my family history, Avhich I will do in the next chapter.

Chapter II

My maternal grandfather had been twice married. By his first Avife he had only one child, a daughter, on whom had been settled a sufficient part of her mother's very handsome dowry, to shield her from dependent circum stances ; which, as it turned out, was a very happy thing for her ; inasmuch as my grand father was a sadly improvident, extravagant man, who would have contrived to spend twenty fortunes, or as many more as fate might have put it in his power to dissipate. He did not remain long a widower after his first Avife's death, but marrying imprudently, that is to say uniting himself to a girl who had neither money nor sense, he knew little b else than distress and discomfort in his second nuptials. He died when his family, consisting of five children, the daughter already men tioned, and two sons and two daughters by his second wife, were all grown up, and all disposed of after one Avay or another.

The sons had enlisted in the army and were both serv ing in India, where I believe they are now; but never having seen nor heard any thing of either of my uncles, except that there were such relatives belonging to me, I may perhaps be pardoned for not having been very minute in storing my memory with circumstantial details respecting their fate or fortune. The annals of the poor and struggling, are neces sarily confined to their personal and immediate connexions. My aunt, my mother's OAvn sister, died soon after her father, happily it may be said, as she was left without a shilling of fortune, and Avith failing health, and a Avorld to fight with, that was not likely to be considerate of her defi ciencies in either. My mother used to say sometimes, that she wished she had gone with her; but this was only when things went exceedingly cross; she was a merry light hearted Avoman, and had no desire to have done with life when it treated her at all tolerably; in fact, life, I believe, woidd have treated her well enough, if she had doue her part toAvards it ; but she expected more from it than it was able to give, and, therefore, could not reasonably complain of its treachery.

If a young woman will marry before she is eighteen, and that to a young man who is not tAventy, and without fifty pounds in the world between them, and with the specific income of one hundred a year, or thereabouts, if she will take the cares of wedded life upon her, what can be said but just what my elder aunt ahvays did say to her on the subject, " as you make your bed, so you must lie in it?" The hundred a year on which my parents started, arose from a clerkship in a mercantile office, Avhich my father held in the provincial town where we resided. Though my grand father from his birth and the position to Avhich that entitled him, might have left to his second family as well as to his eldest daughter, a well defined claim to take their place with gentry of the middle class, yet oAving to the imprudence and improvidence Avhich marked the Avhole of his conduct, they had been so neglected as to education, that such a marriage as my mother's, bating the indiscretion, of her making it at so early an age, was perhaps as good a one as she was entitled to expect.

My grandfather at all events, found no fault Avith it ; he had brought his affairs into that state, in which all things look pretty much alike; and when his eldest daughter remon strated Avith him for suffering Catherine so to " disgrace herself," and did her utmost to prevail upon him to prevent her sister's marriage, he angrily bade her mind her own business, and as she had no lovers of her OAvn, not to meddle with those of other people. To this bitterness of spirit he was possibly stimulated by the dissatisfaction which he naturally enough felt Avith the state of inde pendence she enjoyed ; and Avhich by releasing her from most of the difficulties and distresses Avhich his misconduct had brought upon him self and his other children, rendered her too much the object of his envy, and I am afraid I must also say of his dislike.

I cannot describe my grandfather from any personal knoAvledge I had of him, for he died long before I Avas born; but from what I have heard my mother say, I think he must have lived over again in my aunt, who certainly Avas, " take her for all in all," one of the most extraordinary persons I ever had the fortune to fall in Avith. Affectionate and generous, yet bitter and vindictive, shrewd and clever to a degree that pierced through all disguises, and Avent to the very marrow of everything and person Avith whom she came in contact, yet, when in a good temper and unexcited by any of the stormy passions of her tempestuous nature, exhibiting to strangers a simplicity of manner and child like naivete, together with an open, mirthful spirit of drollery, which the wise and good loved her for, but Avhich the cunning and Avorthless interpreted as indicative of a three parts fool, she presented as complete a puzzle to the calm observer of human nature as could possibly be conceived.

Full of im pulse, and provided with the power of pursuing its promptings, she was, as she always used to say of herself, saved by her sex, and the restraints to Avhich it had guided her, from making that shipwreck of herself, which had been the case with her poor father. My aunt's mother as I have been informed, was by the calmness of her nature in every respect the antipodes to her husband ; whose handsome exterior and agreeable qualities had captivated her fancy, before her judgment had paused to inquire respecting his temper, and habits of mind, and every thing else that was of lasting importance in wedded life. It was not long that she had to experience the full realization of that true but tremendous couplet, Repentance treads upon the heels of pleasure, Marry in haste, — and then repent at leisure — for at the lapse of five years from her marriage, she died, leaving only one child, the individual just alluded to.

The fortune of this child was so closely tied up, that my grandfather could not meddle with a farthing of it; a circumstance which, as I have before observed, exasperated his feelings towards this poor little girl, whose childhood was nursed and cultured amidst influences the most sad and corroding. Greatly must they have been to be dreaded had they fallen over the most pliant and submissive of minds ; for, from all I could learn, my grandfather's temper and ways were of a kind to have soured ancl curdled the sweetest of dispositions; what could they be then, in relation to one, who, as far as her temper and impulsive nature Avere concerned, was the very counterpart of himself? Why, they were just Avhat might have been expected. She grew up to dread and to dislike him, and to find her greatest happiness in keeping as much out of his way as she could.

A very ample alloAvance being made by her guardians for her maintenance and education, she was sent to boarding-school for a few years ; but her father requiring the advantages which this allowance afforded him, he removed her from thence under the pretext of her finishing Avhat Avas incomplete in her studies, with masters at home. The masters came for a short period, just to keep up the appearance of his fulfilling his professed intentions ; but they were soon dismissed, and the young lady, instead of figuring away at the piano, or painting landscapes, or doing any other of the usual deeds of young ladyism, found herself required, and that in no very gentle terms, to assist in the domestic concerns of the second family which her father had about him. Yes; she was required, no doubt, thus to employ herself; but it was hardly to be expected that the requisition should be obeyed, if any earthly possibility could be found of avoiding it.

Was there none ? Coidd she actually find none ? Alas ! it Avould seem to be — no — no. The rigid law makes a parent the possessor of his child till that child numbers the years of twenty-one, and at home she must abide and make the best of it. So she did abide at home, and like a wise person as she was in the extremest depths of her extraordinary nature, she did make the best of it ; and some times scolding, sometimes pitying, and always trying to instil as much good sense as she could, into her brothers and sisters, she went on Avith them till circumstances afforded her an opportunity of seeking some more congenial abode. Trying as her circumstances Avere during her residence under the paternal roof, they were at length somewhat alleviated by the death of my grandmother, my grandfather's second Avife ; whose Ioav and uneducated mind, and spiteful exercise of all the authority with which her situation invested her, had rendered her step-daughter's condition a still more painful one than it would othenvise have proved.

My mother was about seventeen when she formed the acquaintance with my father which soon led to marriage; and then it was, that my aunt finding her advice and representa tions as to its folly and imprudence useless, and treated with contempt by all parties, retired from Halford, and established herself in a residence in London. What Avere the particular events of her history while thus isolated from her relations, they, I believe were unaccpiainted with. That some severe disappointment on the side of her affections was to be numbered amongst them, she sufficiently indicated in the severe and unmeasured terms wherein she Avas accustomed to speak of all love-affairs, and of the "fools," as she politely termed them, who engaged in "such absurdities." She had always told my mother, that she would never have anything to say to her again if she persisted in marrying my father ; and she kept her word pretty firmly as far as the personal in tercourse went, but she responded kindly enough to the frequent appeals Avhich, child after child to the number of fifteen, by increasing the population and the poverty of my poor mother's house, constrained the latter to make to her compassion.

Five-and-twenty years had passed since they parted on the occasion of my mother's marriage ; they were now to meet on the occasion of her widoAvhood, my father being seized Avith a violent fever, which in less than a week brought him to the grave.

Chapter III

There are certain events which seem to engrave the very day and hour of their occurrence upon the memory; and I suppose if I Avere to live to the age of Methuselah, I should never forget Tuesday the 2nd of May, 1826, for on that day my aunt, so often talked of, had prepared us to expect that she Avould arrive at Halford, her native town, and the place in which my mother had spent her life. My father had then been dead a month ; and it Avas to talk over the various possibili ties and impossibilities (for these last presented themselves with the most distinct prominence) of my mother's continuing to get bread to eat, that my aunt had volunteered a visit to us. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, when Kitty and I, tired of sitting still and waiting this august arrival, were suddenly summoned by our sister Maria, from our usual play-ground, the neighbouring church yard, to " come in directly, for aunt Knight was come."

" Come along Kitty," said I, nothing loth to be introduced to the stranger, for I was ahvays of a very gregarious turn, and liked nothing better at any time than the chance of meeting Avith something pleasant in a new acquaintance. Kitty, on the contrary, was shy and someAvhat peevish with fresh people, and had heard too much of the determined character and occasionally austere doings of our elderly relative, to be in any hurry to give her the meeting. Maria being fourteen years old, and invested with the charge of ordering and overlooking us generally, never stood to parley matters; but by dint of that pretty constant snubbing and shoving, whereby young ladies of her age Avho are in the possession of a " little brief authority," contrive to render it available, she always managed to make us do as she desired.

She soon drove us on before her till Ave got to my mother's door, Avhen she stopped to smooth our hair, and make us as presentable as circumstances admitted of her doing. We were in a sort of black garments it is true, by way of mourning for our poor father; and they were our Sunday ones and the best we had ; but coarse and rusty as very inferior black goods ahvays are; more par ticularly when they have been subjected to the wearing of children, and Avere not neAv when first put on, as Avas the case now. New dresses had been bought for the elder part of the family with the money my aunt had sent for funeral expenses; but Kitty and I being the youngest of the party, had been served with what old goAvns my mother and my eldest sisters could appropriate to our use. "Oh, those are your two youngest I suppose," was the greeting which met us as Ave entered the room in which aunt Knight was sitting Avith my mother.

" Yes, that's Alice and Kitty poor things," said my mother, at which epithet Kitty began to cry, not, I believe, from any deeper touch of sensibility than that of general annoyance at being called away from her play, and having " to hold up her head and behave pretty." For my part, I could not have cried if it had been ever so — I was all smiles and curt sies, and " how do you do ma'am." " That seems a mighty easy-mannered little thing," said Miss Knight, somewhat amused Avith my forwardness and self-complacency; "how old is she?" " Just eight," said my mother, " and Kitty is six and a half. I lost a dear little girl after Kitty." "Oh, so much the better," said Miss Knight, " don't be grieving with the remembrance of that, my clear Catherine. It Avas the greatest of mercies to lose any of them.

Have you not got enough left as it is?" " Indeed that's true," said my mother, " but one is apt to miss one's children too, if they are taken away from us. However, I have a much greater loss to mourn," and then she also began to cry, and gay as I had been ALICE RIATERS. 23 hitherto, I coidd not see her tears without twinkling eyes, too. " Well, dry your tears," said my aunt with real kindness, ancl not without some glistening emotion in her own eyes ; which, however, she most stoutly resisted, and manifestly endeavoured to displace by a forced gaiety which Ave did not sufficiently understand to take as it Avas intended. FeAv things are more embarrassing than the intercourse of parties who, though nearly con nected by blood, are separated from each other by difference of education and habits of life.

Poor relations are generally considered as a trial ; but, if they happen to have manners and tastes that will enable them to pass muster in genteel life, they may be endurable in high quarters. Females, more especially if they are good looking, usually make up into draAV ing-room inhabitants very tolerably ; and men Avho can look grave and hold their tongues, are, when Avell dressed, on the whole present able, though more hazardous on the score of their gentility than the other sex. But neither can be anything but a source of agonized dread to their recoiling relatives, when they must, from the force of circumstances, be introduced as " my brother," or " my sister," or " my niece," or " my nephew," Avhile there is not a reasonable hope that they can say "yes" or " no" without some twang of vulgarity that may toll the death-knell of high pretension upon all their kindred.

Now, though we were all reckoned handsome as a family, and Kitty and I, despite our coarse and homely attire, had often the in effable delight of hearing the remark of " what pretty little girls," made upon us by casual passers-by, as we roamed about the town, — yet we were as decidedly vulgar as Ave were pretty. Halford Avas a large provincial town in the eastern part of the kingdom, Avhere the dialect runs into the most beautiful whine that can be imagined ; and where the language of "how d'ye fare now?" — "I axed him" so and so — , and the like elegant diction prevails to a great extent in orders a good degree removed from the very lowest. We were all richly endowed with it, and (inno cents that we were!) saw nothing to be ALICE RIArERS. 25 ashamed of in the free exercise of it. I think our affluence on this point was never more potently demonstrated, than when Ave desired and intended to do our best.

When therefore, Joseph and Richard the two eldest of the family, industrious, good young men, came in to tea, the one from a situation he held in his late father's place, the other from a shop in which he served, both attired in their best clothes and their best behaviour, the "Pray how d'ye fare, aunt?" — and "I hopes I sees you pure Avell, and hearty," I can re member as their separate greeting just as well as if I heard it now. I know also that it was uttered by them with as much unconsciousness of not doing the honours "comme ilfaut," as any candidate for court distinction could have enjoyed on a presentation to the Queen. My aunt Avas evidently at a non plus amongst us. She could by no means find her level. Her usual style of discourse my mother probably had never had much relish for, even if she recollected any thing about it; which she scarcely did, having been separated from her society since the age of VOL. I. C ALICE RIA'ERS. seventeen.

The way in Avhich she used to speak of her sister was not indicative of any sympathy in her pursuits; which Avere by taste as well as by the pointings of necessity, of a high and elevated kind, even during her girlish years. The strength of her temperament, the goading trial she incessantly experienced from the wretchedness of her domestic circumstances, and a turn of mind providentially enamoured of truth and of moral and religious pursuits, had combined to lead her into a region of holy and serene thought, where she ahvays said, and, I doubt not, said truly, that she found her only stable and best happiness; often as she descended from this secure and valued dwelling-place to see what the inferior things of time and sense could offer her in the way of passing amusement. But I find myself lingering too long on the threshold of my engagement.

It is time that I was on my journey, seeing that I have a great deal of ground to pass over. And seeing also, that it is my own history, and not that of my family, which I have to relate, I may sum up all that is to be said of this part of it, by stating that, after a stay of two days at Halford, my aunt ancl her maid departed, taking me Avith them, as that member of the family group Avhom my mother was the most willing to part Avith. Miss Knight had selected Kitty in the first instance as her adopted daughter; because being the youngest, there was more hope she said, of her being able to mould her to her OAvn taste. But my mother would not part with her youngest and most petted child ; ancl Kitty herself had no fancy to go. I, on the contrary, Avas enraptured with my prospects ; not indeed because I was going Avith my aunt, for I, as Avell as the rest of my family, had an instinctive dread of her.

We, all of us, after the first essay at making her acquain tance, felt disinclined to proceed in that enterprize; for, kind ancl conciliating as she certainly endeavoured to make herself towards every one, she had, more than any person I ever knew, a sort of magnetism about her, which insensibly and involuntarily, made every body feel Avhat she herself was feeling to- Avards them ; and, however civil and sociable c her words or acts, Ave all secretly understood that she held us exceedingly cheap on the score of manners ancl learning, and taste ancl knowledge, and everything else that makes a gentleman or a lady. I should have thought it therefore, but a melancholy prospect and one from which I should have unquestionably turned away, if it had been a duet with my aunt that I was henceforth fated to perform ; but I had struck up an alliance with Charlotte Adams, my aunt's maid, from which I augured endless stores of felicity.