Five months, however, had not passed before Martin burst in unexpectedly at a dinner-party of relations in Welbeck-street. He looked very well, but when he was asked why he had come back in such a hurry, ‘he smiled, but said nothing to the question’. Maria, although still at Lynn, at once got wind of his arrival. Soon she saw him at a dance, but she did not dance with him and the ban was evidently enforced, for her letters become plaintive and agitated and hint at secrets that she cannot reveal, even to her dear toads the Burneys. It was now her turn to be sent abroad, partly to be out of Martin’s way, partly to finish her education. She was dispatched to Geneva. But the Burneys soon received a packet from her. In the first place, she had some little commissions that she must ask them to discharge. Would they send her a pianoforte, some music, Fordyce’s sermons, a tea cadet, an ebony inkstand with silver-plated tops, and a very pretty naked wax doll with blue eyes to be had in Fleet-street for half-a-crown – all of which, if well wrapped up, could travel safely in the case of the pianoforte. She had no money to pay with at the moment, for she had been persuaded and indeed was sure that it was true economy if one passed through Paris to spend all one’s money on clothes. But she could always sell her diamonds or she would give them ‘a bill on somebody in London’. These trifling matters dispatched, she turned to something of far greater importance. Indeed, what she had to say was so important that it must be burnt at once. Indeed, it was only her great distress and being alone in a foreign land that led her to tell them at all. But the truth was – so far as can now be ascertained among the fragments and the dashes – the truth was that she had gone much farther with Martin than anybody knew. She had in fact confessed her love to him. And he had proposed something which had made her very angry. She had refused to do it. She had written him a very angry letter. She had had indeed to write it three times over before she got it right. When he read it he was furious. ‘Did my character’, he wrote, ‘ever give you reason to imagine I should expose you because you loved me? ’Tis thoroughly unnatural – I defy the world to bring an instance of my behaving unworthy the Character of a Gentleman.’ These were his very words. And, Maria wrote, ‘I think such the sentiments of a Man of Honour, and such I hope to find him’, she concluded; for although she knew very well that Hetty Burney and Mr. Crisp disliked him, he was – here she came out with it – the man ‘on whom all my happiness in this Life depends and in whom I wish to see no faults’. The Burneys hid the letters, breathed not a word to their parents, and waited in suspense. Nor did they have to wait long. Before the spring was over Maria was back again in Poland-street and in circumstances so romantic, so exciting, and above all so secret that ‘I dare not’, Fanny exclaimed, ‘commit particulars to paper’. This much (and one would have thought it enough) only could be said. ‘Miss Allen – for the last time I shall call her so – came home on Monday last … she was married last Saturday!’ It was true. Martin Rishton had gone out secretly to join her abroad. They had been married at Ypres on May 16 1772. On the 18th Maria reached England and confided the grand secret to Fanny and Susan Burney, but she told no one else. They were afraid to tell her mother. They were afraid to tell Dr. Burney. In their dilemma they turned to the strange man who was always their confidant – to Samuel Crisp of Chessington.
Many years before this Samuel Crisp had retired from the world. He had been a man of parts, a man of fashion and a man of great social charm. But his fine friends had wasted his substance and his clever friends had damned his play. In disgust with the insincerity of fashionable life and the fickleness of fame he had withdrawn to a decayed manor house near London, which, however, was so far from the high road and so hidden from travellers in the waste of a common that no one could find it unless specially instructed. But Mr. Crisp was careful to issue no instructions. The Burneys were almost the only friends who knew the way across the fields to his door. But the Burneys could never come often enough. He depended upon the Burneys for life and society and for news of the great world which he despised and yet could not forget. The Burney children stood to him in the place of his own children. Upon them he lavished all the shrewdness and knowledge and disillusionment which he had won at such cost to himself and now found so useless in an old manor house on a wild common with only old Mrs. Hamilton and young Kitty Cook to bear him company.
It was then to Chessington and to Daddy Crisp that Maria Rishton and Susan Burney made their way on June 7 with their tremendous secret burning in their breasts. At first Maria was too nervous to tell him the plain truth. She tried to enlighten him with hints and hums and haws. But she succeeded only in rousing his wrath against Martin, which he expressed so strongly, ‘almost calling him a Mahoon’, that Maria began to kindle and ran off in a huff to her bedroom. Here she resolved to take the bull by the horns. She summoned Kitty Cook and sent her to Mr. Crisp with a saucy message: ‘Mrs Rishton sent compts, and hoped to see him at Stanhoe this summer’. Upon receiving the message Mr. Crisp came in haste to the girls’ bedroom. An extraordinary scene then took place. Maria knelt on the floor and hid her face in the bedclothes. Mr. Crisp commanded her to tell the truth – was she indeed Mrs. Rishton? Maria could not speak. Kitty Cook ‘claw’d hold of her left hand and shew’d him the ring’. Then Susan produced two letters from Martin which proved the fact beyond doubt. They had been married legally. They were man and wife. If that were so, there was only one thing to be done, Mr. Crisp declared – Mrs. Burney must be informed and the marriage must be made public at once. He behaved with all the sense and decision of a man of the world. He wrote to Maria’s mother; he explained the whole situation. On getting the letter Mrs. Burney was extremely angry. She received the couple – she could do nothing else – but she never liked Martin and she never altogether forgave her daughter. However, the deed was done, and now the young couple had nothing to do but to settle down to enjoy the delights which they had snatched so impetuously.
All now depended, for those who loved Maria – and Fanny Burney loved her very dearly – upon the character of Martin Rishton. Was he, as Mr. Crisp almost said, a Mahoon? Or was he, as his sister openly declared, a Bashaw? Would he make her happy or would he not? The discerning and affectionate eyes of Fanny were now turned observingly upon Martin to find out. And yet it was very difficult to find out anything for certain. He was a strange mixture. He was high-spirited; he was ‘prodigiously agreeable’. But he was somehow, with his talk of vulgarity and distinction, rather exacting – he liked his wife to do him credit. For example, the Rishtons went on to take the waters at Bath, and there were the usual gaieties in progress. Fischer was giving a concert, and the eldest Miss Linley was singing, perhaps for the last time. All Bath would be there. But poor Maria sat alone in the lodgings writing to Fanny, and the reason she gave was a strange one. Martin, ‘who is rather more exact about dress than I am, can’t think of my appearing’ unless she bought a ‘suit of mignionet linen fringed for second mourning’ to go in. She refused; the dress was too expensive; ‘and as he was unwilling I should appear else, I gave up the dear Fischer – see what a cruel thing to have a sposo who is rather a p-p-y in those sort of things’. So there she sat alone; and she hated Bath; and she found servants such a nuisance – she had had to dismiss the butler already. At the same time, she was head over heels in love with her Rishy, and one would like to suppose that the tiff about the dress was made up by the present of Romeo, the remarkably fine brown Pomeranian dog, which Martin bought for a large sum at this time and gave her. Martin himself had a passion for dogs.
It was no doubt in order to gratify his love of sport and Maria’s dislike of towns that they moved on later that spring to Teignmouth, or as Maria calls it to ‘Tingmouth’, in Devon. The move was entirely to her liking. Her letters gushed and burbled, had fewer stops and more dashes than ever, as she endeavoured to describe the delights of Tingmouth to Fanny in London. Their cottage was ‘one of the neatest Thatch’d cottages you ever saw’. It belonged to a sea captain. It was full of china g
lass flowers that he had brought home from his voyages. It was hung with prints from the Prayer-book and the Bible. There were also two pictures, one said to be by Raphael, the other by Correggio. The Miss Minifies might have described it as a retreat for a heroine. It looked on to a green. The fisher people were simple and happy. Their cottages were clean and their children were healthy. The sea was full of whiting, salmon and young mackerel. Martin had bought a brace of beautiful spaniels. It was a great diversion to make them go into the water. ‘Indeed, we intend getting a very large Newfoundland dog before we leave this place.’ And they intended to go for expeditions and take their dinner with them. And Fanny must come. Nothing could serve them but that Fanny should come and stay. It was monstrous for her to say that she must stop at home and copy her father’s manuscripts. She must come at once; and if she came she need not spend a penny, for Maria wore nothing but a common linen gown and had not had her hair dressed once since she came here. In short, Fanny must come.
Thus solicited, Fanny arrived some time in July, 1773, and for almost two months lodged in the boxroom – the other rooms were so littered with dogs and poultry that they had to put her in the boxroom – and observed the humours of Tingmouth society and the moods of the lovers. There could be no doubt that they were still very much in love, but the truth was that Tingmouth was very gay. A great many families made it their summer resort; there were the Phippses and the Hurrels and the Westerns and the Colbournes; there was Mr. Crispen – perhaps the most distinguished man in Tingmouth – Mr. Green who lodged with Mr. Crispen and Miss Bowdler. Naturally, in so small a place, everybody knew everybody. The Phippses, the Hurrels, the Rishtons, the Colbournes, Mr. Crispen, Mr. Green and Miss Bowdler must meet incessantly. They must make up parties to go to the wrestling matches, and attend the races in their whiskeys, and see the country people run after a pig whose tail had been cut off. Much coming and going was inevitable; but, as Fanny soon observed, it was not altogether to Martin’s liking. ‘They will soon make this as errant a public place as Bristol Hot wells or any other place’, he grumbled. He had nothing whatever to say against the Phippses or the Westerns; he had the greatest respect for the Hurrels, which was odd, considering how very fat and greedy Mr. Hurrel was; Mr. Crispen, of course, who lived at Bath and spoke Italian perfectly, one must respect; but the fact was, Martin confided to Fanny, that he ‘almost detested’ Miss Bowdler. Miss Bowdler came of a respectable family. Her brother was destined to edit Shakespeare. Her family were old friends of the Allens. One could not forbid her the house; in fact she was always in and out of it; and yet, said Martin, ‘he could not endure even the sight of her’. ‘A woman’, said Martin, ‘who despises the customs and manners of the country she lives in, must, consequently, conduct herself with impropriety.’ And, indeed, she did. For though she was only twenty-six she had come to Tingmouth alone; and then she made no secret of the fact, indeed she avowed it quite openly, ‘in the fair face of day’, that she visited Mr. Crispen in his lodgings, and not merely paid a call but stayed to supper. Nobody had ‘the most distant shadow of doubt of Miss Bowdler’s being equally innocent with those who have more worldly prudence’, but at the same time nobody could doubt that Miss Bowdler found the society of gentlemen more entertaining than that of ladies – or could deny that though Mr. Crispen was old, Mr. Green who lodged with him was young. Then, of course, she came on to the Rishtons and encouraged Maria in her least desirable attribute – her levity, her love of chaff, her carelessness of dress and deportment. It was deplorable.
Fanny Burney liked Martin very much and listened to his complaints with sympathy; but for all her charm and distinction, indeed because of them, she was destined unfortunately to make matters worse. Among her gifts she had the art of being extremely attractive to elderly gentlemen. Soon Mr. Crispen was paying her outrageous attentions. ‘Little Burney’, he said, was irresistible; the name of Burney would be found – with many others, Miss Bowdler interjected – cut upon his heart. Mr. Crispen must implore one kiss. It was said of course in jest, but Miss Bowdler took it of course in earnest. Had she not nursed Mr. Crispen through a dangerous illness? Had she not sacrificed her maidenly reputation by visiting him in his cottage? And then Martin, who had been perhaps already annoyed by Mr. Crispen’s social predominance, found it galling in the extreme to have that gentleman always in the house, always paying outrageous compliments to his guest. Anything that ‘led towards flirtation’ he disliked; and soon Mr. Crispen had become, Fanny observed, almost as odious as Miss Bowdler. He threw himself into the study of the Italian grammar; he read aloud to Maria and Fanny from the Faery Queen, ‘omitting whatever, to the poet’s great disgrace, has crept in that is improper for a woman’s ear’. But what with Miss Bowdler, Mr. Crispen, the Tingmothians and the influence of undesirable acquaintances upon his wife, there can be no doubt that Martin was very uncomfortable at Tingmouth, and when the time came, September 17, to say good-bye he appeared ‘in monstrous spirits’. Perhaps everybody was glad that the summer was at an end. They were glad to say good-bye and glad to be able to say it in civil terms. Mr. Crispen left for Bath; and Miss Bowdler – there is no rashness in the assumption – left, for Bath also.
The Rishtons proceeded in their whiskey with all their dogs left to visit the Westerns, one of the few families with whom Martin cared to associate. But the journey was unfortunate. They began by taking the wrong turning, then they ran over Tingmouth, the Newfoundland dog, who was running under the body of the whiskey. Then at Oxford Maria longed to see the colleges, but feeling sure that Martin’s pride would be hurt at showing himself in a whiskey with a wife where in the old days he had ‘shone forth a gay bachelor with a phaeton and four bays’, she refused his offer to take her, and had her hair dressed, very badly, instead. Off they went again, and again they ran over two more dogs. Worst of all, when they arrived at the Westerns’, they found the whole house shut up and the Westerns gone to Buckinghamshire. Altogether it was an unfortunate expedition. And it is impossible, as one reads Maria’s breathless volubility to Fanny, to resist the conviction that the journey with its accidents and mistakes, with its troop of dogs, and Martin’s pride, and Maria’s fears and her recourse to the hairdresser and the hairdresser’s ill success, and Martin’s memories of gay bachelor days and phaetons and bay horses and his respect for the Westerns and his love of servants was typical of the obscure years of married life that were now to succeed each other at Stanhoe, in Norfolk.
At Stanhoe they lived the lives of country gentry. They repaired the ancient house, though they had but the lease of it. They planted and cleaned and cut new walks in the garden. They bought a cow and started a dairy for Maria. Dog was added to dog – rare dogs, wonderful dogs, spaniels, lurchers, Portugal pointers from the banks of the Dowrow. To keep up the establishment as establishments should be kept up, nine servants, in Martin’s opinion, were none too many. And so, though she had no children, Maria found that all her time was occupied with her household and the care of her establishment. But how far better, she wrote, to be active like this instead of leading ‘the loitering life’ she had led at Tingmouth! Surely, Maria continued, scribbling her heart out ungrammatically to Fanny Burney, ‘there are pleasures for every station and employment’, and one cannot be bored if ‘as I hope I am acting properly’; so that in sober truth she did not envy Fanny Lord Stanhope’s fête champêtre, since she had her chickens and her dairy, and Tingmouth, who had had the distemper, must be led out on a string. Why, then, regret Miss Bowdler and Mr. Crispen and the sport and gaiety of the old days at Tingmouth? Nevertheless, the old days kept coming back to her mind. At Tingmouth, she reflected, they had only kept a man and a maid. Here they had nine servants, and the more there are the more ‘cabally and insolent’ they become. And then relations came over from Lynn and pried into her kitchen and made her more ‘bashful’, as Martin would say, than ever. And then if she sat down to her tambour for half an hour Martin, ‘who is I believe the Most Active Creature
alive’, would burst in and say, ‘Come Maria, you must go with me and see how charmingly Damon hunts’ – or he would say ‘I know of a pheasant’s nest about two miles off, you shall go and see it’.
Then away we trail broiling over Cornfields – and when we come to the pit some Unlucky boy has Stole the Eggs … then I spend Whole Mornings seeing him Shoot Rooks – grub up trees – and at night for we never come in now till Nine o’clock – when tea is over and I have settled my accounts or done some company business – bed-time Comes.
Genius and Ink Page 14
