May, Lou & Cass

by Sophia Hillan

  Lizzy’s son, Cecil Rice, who had already been a serving soldier for seven years, could hardly wait to get out to the Crimea: trapped in Ireland, as he thought, he was delighted to be sent at last when reinforcements arrived from Dublin. His brother Edward Rice was in the navy during the siege of Balaclava; Lewis Knight, Henry’s only son by his first wife and cousin Sophia Cage, served in the 17th Lancers, and was fortunate not to be in the doomed Charge of the Light Brigade. ‘Lewis was well out of that blundering, mad charge,’ Cecil wrote to his sister Louisa in November 1854.35 Their friend and neighbour George Billington, son of the Reverend John Billington who had sought Marianne’s hand in 1822, told his father that he was afraid he would be sent home before he had the opportunity ‘to have one go in at the Ruski’.36 He got his chance, however, and wrote vividly from the camp outside Sebastopol of the former beauty and present devastation of the town: he was hoping that he would soon see Cecil Rice, who was stationed fifteen miles away. Lord George, too old to go into battle himself, sent consignments of the hand-knitted socks which his Donegal tenants had made in their homes, and George Billington appears to have been one of the recipients. His letter from the camp shows how necessary such apparently simple gifts were: in an attempt to keep their packs light and their progress swift, the men had been ordered ashore without tents, ambulances or sufficient protection against the Russian weather: ‘I don’t know what I would have done without those Irish socks you gave me the last time I was at home,’ George Billington wrote. ‘Those and the mittens Miss Rice gave me have been of more use than anything I have. I believe they saved me from being frostbitten the other night.’37 Before long, Cecil Rice did arrive at Sebastopol: the Army List of 1861 shows that he ‘served in the Crimea from 16th July 1855, including the Siege and Fall of Sebastopol’, where he was decorated for bravery.38 In the same regiment was a Chawton cousin, Edward Jr’s son Ernest Knight, who would shortly die of cholera, and a young Irishman named Somerset Ward.

  The Hon. Somerset Richard Hamilton Augusta Ward, youngest son of Edward Southwell Ward, 3rd Viscount Bangor, was twenty-two years old in 1855. He had joined the 72nd Regiment of Foot at seventeen, in 1850, just as the fourteen-year-old Norah Hill was charming her cousins at Godmersham. Before long, she would begin to charm Somerset Ward, too.

  First, however, not only Captain Ward but many of Norah’s family, including her eldest brother Arthur, would have to fight in another war, this time in India.

  As David Murphy has observed, while Ireland was both deeply interested and actively involved in the Crimean War, the news of such atrocities as the massacre at Cawnpore and the siege of Lucknow shifted the focus of public attention, and ‘the Crimean war simply became old news in Ireland’.39 The young Arthur Hill, aged eighteen, joined the Rifle Brigade (the Prince Consort’s Own) as an Ensign in October 1855. Though two battalions were raised for the Crimean war, he was not sent there. He was, however, at the Battle of Cawnpore, and the siege and capture of Lucknow, serving in Oude and Central India with the Camel Corps under Sir Colin Campbell, who had been his cousin Cecil Rice’s commanding officer in the Crimea.40 From distant Donegal, where bitter struggles over land were once more causing anxiety, Louisa Hill gave news of Arthur to Fanny in January 1858:

  The last letter we had from Arthur was dated December 1st from an entrenched Tank about 3 miles from the rim of Tuttelpore, which is 50 from Cawnpore — they had been within 20 miles of C’pore but had been ordered to fall back and entrench themselves strongly in case of an attack from the Rebels who were in gt. force & very strong in artillery. Sir C. Campbell has since destroyed their force ... & dispersed it — he was very well & wrote in good spirits.41

  Arthur’s sister Norah had received her own letter from him, telling of his lucky escape from a planned ambush, as she told their cousin Louisa Rice:

  Yes, we have heard from Arthur several times lately — thank you, & are very anxious abt him. He was on his way to Cawnpore & had had a very narrow escape. They rec’d a message to advance to where Genl Windham was & if they had, would have fallen into the middle of the rebels who were there with a very [ruffianly?] force, but it was providentially discovered in time that he was a spy — & soon after a real messenger came with orders to retire — dearest Boy, we are longing to hear again from him. I am afraid there is a great deal to be done.42

  Though Arthur Hill did survive, such experiences undoubtedly left their mark on him and his cousins. Cecil Rice, following his Crimean service, was sent to India during the Mutiny, as were two of Edward Knight’s sons by his first marriage, Philip and Brodnax. The two wars were not unconnected, for although the Mutiny may in the end have been triggered by a incident offending the religious beliefs of the Sepoys in Bengal, there had been many indications of dissatisfaction for some time before. As Orlando Figes has observed in his recent study, Russia had considered organising attacks in the vicinity of India, in order to divert British troops from the Crimea. Though these plans were not executed, Figes maintains that rumours of an imminent Russian invasion in India encouraged both Hindus and Muslims to use the opportunity of British exhaustion in the Crimea to organise rebellion.43 Both the Mutiny, and the acts of reprisal which followed it, marked it out as a terrible war and Jane Austen’s great-nephews were infected by the general spirit of vengeful scorn against those whom they had termed ‘the natives’. It was an attitude which Arthur Hill and Somerset Ward would retain and remember years later during the Land War, when Arthur had become the owner of Gweedore and Somerset Ward his agent. ‘We didn’t kill half or even a quarter so many of the brutes,’ wrote Cecil Rice in December 1856,

  as we should have done if it had been an open plain. That sounds sanguinary you think, I daresay, but upon my word, without being, I believe, a more than ordinarily bloodthirsty party, I rejoice at the death of every regular Sepoy mutineer, as in spite of what people choose to say and write, the atrocities they have committed are perfectly frightful to think about.44

  Like Louisa in Ireland during the famine, baffled by the refusal of the starving tenants to go to the workhouse, Lizzy’s son could not fathom why the Sepoys were prepared to die rather than accept the shame of surrender: ‘why the stupid idiots can’t give themselves up I can’t imagine, full pardon has been offered to them all’.45

  In Ireland, meanwhile, Louisa had had her own battle to fight. In 1851, her marriage to Lord George had been examined and discussed in the House of Lords. The purpose of this was to ascertain the legitimacy or otherwise of children born to marriages contravening Lord Lyndhurst’s Act of 1835. Lord St Germans referred to evidence given to the Marriage Commissioners by Lord Marcus Hill, Lord George’s brother, giving examples of the degree of social acceptance enjoyed by Lord and Lady George following their marriage:

  The work of that evidence deserves attention, but I will only read the following passages from it. He is asked — ‘Have they been received in society on the same footing since their marriage as before?’ Lord Marcus replies — ‘I have no reason to doubt it. As soon as they returned from the Continent, they came to London and went over to Ireland. In regard to the reception generally given to my brother and sister on their return from Altona, I may add that Lord Winchilsea, who is Mr Knight’s neighbour, near Godmersham, invited them to East Well Park, and that other neighbours called on her. Since their return to Ireland, everyone, high and low, has been to see her, and many have expressed their strong approbation of their union, such as Lady Bangor, Mr and Lady Helena Stewart, Sir James and Lady Stewart, Rev. Dr. and Mrs Kingsmill, Rev. Mr. Atkins, Rev. Dr. and Lady Anne Hastings, Mr Ball, Mrs Otway, and many others, the common people approving highly, and some saying how wise Lord George had been not to bring a stranger into his family.’ Does anyone believe that the noble Earl here referred to, would have invited to his house a couple whom he believed to have contracted an incestuous marriage, or to be living in a state of concubinage? Does anyone believe that the other highly respectable and estimable persons whose names I have
read would have called on Lord and Lady George Hill if they looked on their marriage as incestuous? Would they have expressed approbation of their union? Surely, my Lords, this sufficiently proves that persons who contract these marriages do not lose their position in society.46

  It was then barely two years since Carlyle had seen Louisa in Ireland, and commented on her nun-like reserve and gentleness. For a reticent woman, public discussion of her private life, and the interrogation of their neighbours and the same society friends who had been so prominent at Lord George’s first marriage to her sister, can have been nothing short of an ordeal. Yet, it had to be endured, not just for the sake of their son George, who would otherwise be rendered illegitimate, but also for the success in society of Norah and little Cassandra. If the good opinion of society had been desirable in the time of Jane Austen, it was essential in the censorious Victorian age.

  Social success, however, was not denied the Hill girls. Apart from their membership of the Downshire family, they had the advantage of Louisa’s acquaintance with Pamela, Lady Campbell, wife of Sir Guy Campbell and an old friend of Lord Carlisle, who became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1855. By an ironic twist, Lady Campbell’s background could easily have barred her from society, for she was the daughter of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the romantic, tragic young nobleman who had been a leader of the United Irishmen, rising against the crown in 1798. He was also, however, the younger brother of the Duke of Leinster, so very powerful and respected a figure in English and Irish society that no one thought any less of him for having had a rebel in the family. Lady Campbell was very much part of society, and had married further into the political world: her friendship was a very useful one for the shy Louisa and her stepdaughters.47 Indeed, Lady Campbell’s knowledge of and admiration for the work of Jane Austen may have led her to take a special interest in the Hill family, as Louisa wrote to Fanny in the spring of 1856:

  Lady Campbell is … a most ardent admirer of Aunt Jane’s works. Aunt Cassandra herself would be satisfied at her appreciation of them — nothing ever like them before or since. When she heard I was her niece she was in extasies. ‘My dear, is it possible you are Jane Austen’s niece? That I should never have known that before! — come and tell me all about her — do you remember her? Was she pretty? Wasn’t she pretty? Oh, if I could but have seen her — Macaulay says she is second to Shakespeare. I was at Bowood when Lord Lansdowne heard of her death — you cannot think how grieved and affected he was —’ I told her you were her great friend and used to correspond with her. ‘Oh! Write and ask her if she can only send me one of her own real letters, and tell me any and every particular she may know about her life, self, everything, I should be so delighted! Pray do write and ask her. The Archbishop of Dublin is another of her staunch admirers, and we have such long conversations about her.’ Then off she went, talking over and repeating parts of every one of the books, & c.—48

  The picture of Pamela, Lady Campbell given by Louisa shows a rare moment of humour on her part: it is not impossible to imagine Jane Austen’s enjoyment of the great lady’s ‘extasies’, as she repeated ‘parts of every one of the books &c’, for excess of any kind, though she invariably distrusted it, tended to amuse her. Louisa’s account accords with the lively, enthusiastic style of Lady Campbell’s address in her general correspondence. Yet, while it is heartening to see that the memory of Jane Austen was so much cherished, Lady Campbell was by no means typical, and was herself much more a product of Jane Austen’s Georgian world than of the Victorian age. Lady Campbell’s own letter to Lord Carlisle on the subject shows that she fully expected to have long and intimate discussions with Louisa, and possibly Fanny, on the subject of her favourite author:

  Only fancy the discovery we have made, dear Lord Carlyle [sic]! Lady George Hill is own niece to Jane Austen the authoress and she can tell us so much about her! She had large dark eyes and a brilliant complexion, and long, long black hair down to her knees. She was very absent indeed. She would sit silent awhile, then rub her hands, laugh to herself and run up to her room. The impression her books give one, is that she herself must have been so perfectly charming. I always fancied her Anne in Persuasion was autobiography of herself, except that the real Captain Wentworth had not been fortunate enough to marry her.49

  Lady Campbell then went on to recount Louisa’s revelation that Cassandra and Jane had discussed the ending of Mansfield Park, that Cassandra had tried to persuade Jane to allow Henry Crawford to marry Fanny Price, and reported in amazement that ‘Miss Austen stood firmly and would not allow the change.’50 Any hope of information from Fanny, however, in was vain: Fanny did not look at the box of letters for six months after the exchange and, having done so, she noted the fact in her diary, but gave no indication that she had responded or intended to respond to Lady Campbell’s request.51

  This incident may have marked the beginning of a strange divergence of opinion where it might least have been expected. Interest in Jane Austen from the outside world was growing in the 1850s, yet the family – with the exception of James Edward, who began to consider the writing of a memoir – felt less and less inclined to discuss her. The leader in this obfuscation was the niece to whom Jane Austen had felt closest, Fanny herself. Yet, there is another consideration: Fanny’s letters and behaviour do indicate that for the last twenty years of her life she suffered from increasing memory loss, and it is possible that her reluctance to comply with the request from Lady Campbell may have indicated the beginning of that sad withdrawal.

  Louisa, meanwhile, had two stepdaughters to launch, and Norah was by the middle 1850s her priority. Whatever her anxieties about her husband, stepsons, her own little delicate son George, Godmersham, or her sisters and brothers, Louisa had to follow the prescribed route for the two girls, so that they would not become what George Moore would famously term ‘muslin martyrs’, the leftover spinsters on the Dublin social circuit.52 In the same letter of January 1858 where she told Fanny of Arthur’s dangerous posting in India, Louisa wrote news of her other charges:

  George and the two girls went to Castle Ward about three weeks ago — to come back in ten days — they are there still & enjoying it very much — I hope they will come back the end of this or beginning of next week — Lady B is such a nice and excellent friend of them, particularly of Norah.53

  ‘Lady B’ was Lady Bangor, the former Hon. Harriette Margaret Maxwell, and mother of Somerset Ward. The Bangors were quite as important in society as the Hillsboroughs, and this was an excellent connection. Norah was indeed enjoying herself. It was from Castle Ward that she had written to Louisa Rice with news of Arthur’s escape from the rebel plot, and Somerset’s movements in India, managing to fit in between these accounts some of the delights of their visit to the Wards. She did not include sailing as one of those joys, having failed, it would seem, to inherit her mother’s love of the sea:

  Cass & I are here by ourselves. Papa went back to Dawson Ct. yesterday morning & we are to stay until next week I believe. It is such a beautiful place even now — we like being here very much. Lady Bangor is kind and fond of us — we have been out in Ld. B’s boat several times, but I was more wretched each time so now I have given up trying to like it — we have had most beautiful weather, today it is colder & stormy … Lady B. had a letter from Somerset from Bombay the other day — they did not know whether they were to stay there or be sent up the country …54