The Marines’ journal finishes with a remark to its readers which is not beside the point of this work: “The memory of Sir Edward Nicolls will ever be cherished and regarded with pride by the officers and men of the corps in which he so nobly served. They will remember too, that though ‘Fighting Nicolls’ was ever in the front in all his splendid actions, he was backed up by the strong arms and the dauntless hearts of his soldiers, and the Royal Marines can never forget that the laurels now encircling their badge (the finest in the Service) owed the growth to the torrents of blood shed by those brave men.”
It is hard to know what Darling Eddy was like, for he did not live long enough to leave much record of himself, but we hope he was like his father, who left bits and records of great enthusiastic schemes, full of the indignant ring of principles unusual in a military man, and a manly humanitarianism not often found in them either, especially in the nineteenth century. Once he wrote to Lord Bathhurst with a fine scheme for colonizing New Zealand:
The New Zealanders are represented as a brave and warlike race of Men, with the important addition to their characters of being as affectionate, intelligent and industrious, as they are hardy, active, and ingenious; possessing minds capable of receiving and profiting by instruction, and hearts that bear a grateful sense of any kindness they receive. It must however be admitted that great odium attaches to them in consequence of the abhorrent custom of eating their war victoms [sic], and of the commission of other acts of cruelty, practised on the crews of some of the European ships which have touched on their coasts; but your Memorialist is confident that the plan which he is about to propose for the colonization of the Island would (by removing the causes of these evils) entirely put a stop to such ferocious acts.13
He has someone in mind for the job, too: “It is his anxious wish to be considered by your Lordship, as eligible and competent to be intrusted with the Colonization of New Zealand, . . . your memorialist trusts that 30 years Services will be a sufficient warrant, for his future Zeal and activity in promoting any undertaking which may conduce to the welfare of his Country.” In this, as in most of his schemes, he had little luck.
Peacock, fond from boyhood of hearing sea adventures, as he had done from his Grandfather Love, was fond of them in manhood too, and he must have gotten on well with Mary Ellen’s father-in-law, the fiery old Marine.
•
How pleased everyone was when Eddy and Mary Ellen fell in love. Even though their marriage must wait for Edward’s prospects to straighten out, and for Mary Ellen to grow a little older, their engagement had very general approval. Some stuffier relatives might perhaps have echoed Sir William Elliot’s objections to the naval profession in Jane Austen’s Persuasion: “I have two strong grounds of objection to it. First, as being the means of bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction, and raising men to honours which their fathers and grandfathers never dreamt of; and, secondly, as it cuts up a man’s youth and vigour most horribly; a sailor grows old sooner than any other man. . . . They are all knocked about, and exposed to every climate, and every weather, till they are not fit to be seen. It is a pity they are not knocked on the head at once, before they reach Admiral Baldwin’s age.”
But now Eddy was young and fair, with good family and every good prospect, and with the high temper needed to manage the temperamental Mary Ellen, too. Most of the family friends took, as Hogg did, a congratulatory tone (the marriage of a daughter in any family was a matter for relieved celebration in those days):
Dear Peacock,
Receive my congratulations on Your Daughter’s marriage. I earnestly hope, that the union may prove an auspicious one in all respects.
I shall always feel a most lively interest in the welfare of Mary Ellen. I expect to hear soon, that Mr. N. has been appointed an Admiral of the Bed Squadron; & has become as illustrious in his profession, as the conjoint Glory of Cornelius van Tromp & Horatio Nelson co(d) make him. And I wo(d), that all this sh(d) be, if it were possible, without so much as taking the trouble (& as it is the pleasantest mode of going to the stars), to uncross his legs, or take his hands out of his pockets once!—
With kind regards & good wishes to the Bride, I am
Dear P.—
Yours truly,
T Jeffn Hogg
3 Plowden Bgs
Temple, 17th Jan’y. 1844
So Edward and Mary Ellen were married amid very general approval, at Shepperton, Surrey, and Mary Ellen put up her hair, which she had worn until now in long pale curls, and became a young wife, and went off with Edward to Ireland, where Edward had command of a ship. A steamship, of course, quite in the family line. Perhaps they took a cottage—Mary had a fondness for cottages and for housekeeping. Perhaps they had a nice Irish cow. Or most likely—for surely they would not be in Ireland for long—they were still in lodgings, with a few things of their own, bride-presents and hand-me-downs to make the place seem theirs. Mary, with years of managing the Peacock household behind her, was already an accomplished cook, so that Eddy fared better in this respect than many young husbands.
Eddy was wild and brave and fearless, as a son must be who has such a fearless father if he is not to disgrace the family—an option, of course, seized by many Victorian sons. But not Eddy. And Eddy had a beautiful bride, herself fearless, who liked to go on board ship; would come up on deck in a gale; Eddy and Mary would laugh at a gale. Eddy had command of a steam vessel—a circumstance in which the family connections may be discerned—but it was his own ship, and he and Mary were in Ireland, here to start their new grown-up life, newly wed and with a ship to command. Fine prospects. They had been married about two months and then one morning, in a gale, Mary and Eddy on board the Dwarf observed a yacht anchored nearby begin to drag its moorings, and Eddy with a few of his men put off in two little boats to help. One capsized and Eddy and some others went to rescue a one-armed sailor—but their little boat was swept over in the gale and something hit Eddy on the head and that was the end of him. They took Mary Ellen below, perhaps; or perhaps she remained standing at the rail, staring into the black water for Eddy, but they did not find him then.
•
They had been married in January 1844. In March, Mary was already pregnant. One day Edward went out in his ship, in a storm, and was drowned while trying to rescue someone. These things are certain. Of the actual circumstance of Eddy’s death, accounts differ. Edith wrote of the father she never saw: “He was lost at sea at Tarbert, in Kerry, at the mouth of the Shannon, the March of that same year, while endeavoring to save the life of a poor one-armed man.” This has remained the received account.
But the most unexpected pitfalls beset the Biographer. A descendant of the Nicolls family, looking after Eddy’s memory, is anxious that it be correct in all accounts, and writes a cautionary letter: “I expect that by now you have got details about Lieut. Edward from the various record offices but of course I would answer any questions about him which I knew—there is one small detail which occurs to me. He did not go to try & save a ‘one armed member of the crew.’ This should be ‘a member of the crew who was single-handed in a boat.’ When this boat capsized in the Shannon Estuary, E. N. & 5 others went to help in a ‘gig,’ which was itself swept over by the Gale—E. N. & one other man being lost.
“I do hope that E. N.’s death will not be sentimentalized since he died in pursuit of his duties, & it would be so unlike any of the Nicolls family to treat it as high tragedy.” And indeed darling Eddy did not live long enough, or die to sufficient purpose, to be called tragic, though the young bride and widow, alone in her lodgings in Tarbert, might, of course, have felt this death to be something in the tragic vein.
•
Everyone was horrified by the shocking news: Mary Shelley wrote to Claire Clairmont: “I am sorry to have to report an event which will distress you, tho it does not touch you nearly—poor Mary has lost her husband. They were stat
ioned you know, in the south of Ireland—going out on some act of duty in an open boat, during one of the late terrible storms—on the 11th of this month, the boat upset & he & another were drowned.—Peacock I believe has set off for his unfortunate daughter—It is most sad!—” Mary Shelley was better able than most, no doubt, to guess how Mary Ellen must be feeling.
T. J. Hogg writes:
Dear Peacock,
We were All much Shocked & distressed at your severe domestic affliction; it is so heavy a blow indeed, that I know not what to say about it.
As for the unhappy young Lady, I sincerely hope & trust, that, in due time, she may meet with some person worthy to supply the cruel loss; & indeed I scarcely know anyone more likely to attract the regards of an intelligent & estimable young man.
I hope, that, not withstanding your sorrows, we may still contrive to be together during the fine weather sometimes.
I go on Monday to join the Circuit at Liverpool
Your’s truly,
T Jeffn Hogg
23 March 1844
And Mary Shelley to Claire: “I have no news of poor Mary—except that she begged her father not to go over to her—but leave her to manage everything herself—this was at first—I should think that by this time [?] She is over—some day soon I shall go by steamer and pay Peacock a visit at the I[ndia] H[ouse].”
But in June: “Mrs. Nicolls is still in Ireland.” So we do not know if Peacock went to help her or not, or why she stayed there alone so long, or why she wanted to manage by herself. But she was to be like this through other trials—would withdraw, would cope, would persevere with tight-lipped practicality. Her later trials were to be worse but she cut her teeth on trouble here.
•
In the autumn Edith was born at the Nicolls’s family home at Shooter’s Hill, in Kent. She was fatherless, but she had fond grandparents, a devoted mother, aunts, uncles. She had an odd life. History, with its eyes fixed on Grandpapa, has looked right past Edith, with only brief thanks to her for writing her memoir of Peacock, for remembering things that no one else could, and for putting together, from personal knowledge and recollection, explanations and dates for her grandfather’s work. Scholars have been a little condescending, though, because she made some mistakes a careful male scholar would not have made. Helpful male scholars oversaw her little undertakings and made suggestions. No one has ever said if Edith grew up beautiful like her mother, and, in truth, her tone is not that of a beautiful woman, but of a wise, strong, and interesting one who became a Remarkable Woman in a logical direction, gotten from Mama and Grandpapa. We shall want to watch little Edith.
But in 1844 she was only just born, and taken to Lower Halliford. A little later she lived with Mama in London, and again at Lower Halliford, when Mama married That Man, and she was sent off to school, and stayed with her dead Papa’s family sometimes, and visited Mama in her cheap lodgings here and there, sat by her dying Mama, perhaps, and certainly by her dying Grandpapa, and learned very early to cope with people’s vagaries, the way they had of running off, and dying, and being sad. Little Edith kept to her own way and remembered everything that she had learned.
•
Mary Ellen was now twenty-three years old, a widow, and a mother. It is a wonder that nobody came and married her immediately, for she must have presented to the Victorian eye a sight more affecting than any other: a young woman, having “acquired the endearing name of Mother,” was obliged by custom to wear a little cap; and Mary’s cap—how tragic, how lovely—must be of black. It is the situation of Thackeray’s Amelia. Thackeray tells us we “must draw back in the presence of the cruel grief under which [she] is bleeding. Tread silently round the hapless couch of the poor prostrate soul. Shut gently the door of the dark chamber wherein she suffers, as those kind people did who nursed her through the first months of her pain, and never left her until heaven had sent her consolation. A day came—of almost terrified delight and wonder—when the poor widowed girl pressed a child upon her breast—a child, with the eyes of [him] who was gone—a little boy, as beautiful as a cherub. What a miracle it was to hear its first cry! How she laughed and wept over it—how love, and hope, and prayer woke again in her bosom as the baby nestled there. . . .” All England wept, and Thackeray finally rivaled Dickens.
•
But Mary Ellen does not seem to have been like Amelia—not at all—and was perhaps even more dashing than Becky. If she was unfortunate in meeting up with George Meredith, we, at least, are fortunate that George was a novelist and left some heroines in books who reputedly owe a lot to Mary. There is one special type of ironic, fascinating, and sophisticated femme du monde who keeps recurring: named, unflatteringly, “Mrs. Mount” in the first book George wrote after their separation: later, in Rhoda Fleming, after the sting had worn off, “Mrs. Lovell,” which is kinder. Mrs. Lovell had gone off very young with a military husband who was killed in a duel, in defense of her reputation, and now was back in England, very much the queenly hostess of a place on a river that sounds exactly like Peacock’s: “A white mansion among great oaks, in view of the summer sails and winter masts of the yachting squadron. The house was ruled, during the congregation of Christmas guests, by charming Mrs. Lovell, who relieved the invalid Lady of the house of the many serious cares attending the reception of visitors, and did it all with ease. Under her sovereignty the place was delightful, and if it was by repute pleasanter to young men than to any other class, it will be admitted that she satisfied those who are loudest in giving tongue to praise.” And also: “The lady had a small jointure, and lived partly with her uncle, Lord Elling, partly with Squire Blancove, her aunt’s husband, and a little by herself, which was when she counted money in her purse, and chose to assert her independence,” which may give us some clue as to Mary Ellen’s mode of life after Eddy’s death.14
•
And, if Mary Ellen was like Mrs. Lovell, what was Mrs. Lovell like? “She was golden and white, like an autumnal birch-tree,—yellow hair, with warm-toned streaks in it, shading a fabulously fair skin. Then, too, she was tall, of a nervous build, supple and proud in motion, a brilliant horsewoman, and a most distinguished sitter in an easy drawing-room chair, which is, let me impress upon you, no mean quality. After riding out for hours with a sweet comrade, who has thrown the mantle of dignity half-way off her shoulders, it is perplexing, and mixed strangely of humiliation and ecstasy, to come upon her clouded majesty where she reclines as upon rose-hued clouds, in a mystic circle of restriction (she who laughed at your jokes, and capped them, two hours ago) a queen.”
This is very like the “dashing horsewoman who attracted much attention from the young men of the day,” as Holman Hunt described Mary Ellen.
The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives Page 8
