Open Writing

Mary’s Journal

June 16th
Oh joy! I have had my first guest in my new home. It was our closest neighbour Mrs. Gillam from the Red House. She is quite a bit older than I am, and has four children and seems to be expecting another. She is a large woman with a very cheerful face, her hair prematurely grey, and intelligent dark eyes. We took tea, and she welcomed me to the neighbourhood, asking me about where I come from. She was wearing a pretty lilac gown of thin material, and a lace collar with some finishing decoration of lilac ribbon.

I wonder if we will be friends. She made me nervous as she seems so confident and I seemed inadequate to match her wisdom. But at least I now know someone in person and will be able to greet her when I see her in the road. She invited me to come to see her and she is “At Home” on Tuesdays, so next week I will venture to her house. But because of not having a servant like most of my neighbours do, I will have to work harder on the days I do work to be able to fit in my social life.

I have had another go at writing poetry. This time I chose the subject of my sister Elizabeth. I had not thought before the wedding how my leaving would effect her. We are the only girls in the family and being close in age, and similar in looks and temperament, we always shared a bedroom and told each other our secrets (except I never told her about the baby, and I don’t think Mother and Father did either.) Mother says she is missing me sorely.

The Bridesmaid

The bridal is o’er the guests are all gone.
The bride’s only sister sits weeping alone.
The wreath of white lilacs is torn from her brow
And the heart of the Bridesmaid is desolate now.

She thinks of each pleasure each pain that endured
The lovely compassion of earlier years.
She has torn the white lilacs in grief from her brow
And the heart of the bridesmaid is desolate now.

I am not quite as pleased with it as I was with my earlier effort. Somehow the third stanza doesn’t seem to sit well with the others. I shall work on it some more. I hinted to Charles that I was working on some poetry, but I don’t want him to see if it he is only going to criticise it.

He criticised the cleanliness of the house the other day. He is used to being in rooms which were cleaned daily by servants, and although I did many jobs at the Inn, heavy cleaning wasn’t one of them, and it doesn’t come easily to me. Now there is only me, and I have so many jobs to do that I spend less time cleaning than other things I would rather do. I cried at his tone, and he did apologise.

June 18th
We had a light rain last night which was much needed refreshment for the garden. Today I sat on the bench and had a quiet read under our shady tree, as the excessive heat did not make me tempted to any work at all. But we were in doors all the evening as it was close and sultry, sure signs of more rain to come. I must get on with doing some preserving tomorrow, as we have such a glut of berries.

June 20th
Charles and I took the train to Birmingham to meet up with his cousin Elizabeth. Her father, now dead, was brother to Mrs. Ann Mayfield’s husband. She took us to a wonderfully busy affair – music, dancing, all sorts. Quite took our minds off our worries.

June 21st
I heard back from Aunt Ann today. She says her mother who is elderly and frail lives in Scarborough. So the plan, if we agree, will be for us and her children to go to Scarborough to visit her mother. However, those in York will be told that her mother is ill and that she is going to care for her. She will also intimate that she has a cousin who is pregnant who lives nearby there, although that is not true. We will tell people here in Worcester that I am needed to help with a relative in York without being too specific. The difficulty is that Charles has family in both places, and we must make sure that the stories don’t conflict.

I went to see Mrs.Gillam today. She says I am to call her Sophia but it is very difficult for me to do that. I was always taught to call older women by their married names and with full formality. I keep forgetting that I am a wife now, not a girl anymore, and as a wife I have a status of my own. She is very pleasant and seems very happy with life.

She has a lovely big house. Her parlour is a comfortable room – at once snug and handsome with high ceilings and heavy mahogany furniture. Her youngest child Phoebe who is two was playing in the front room. She has 3 servants but mostly they deal with cooking and cleaning and the garden and Sophia says she likes to have the children herself. I didn’t want to ask when her baby was due, but she volunteered that she is expecting it in January. My baby will be born long before then. I wonder how we will cope with all the deception that must take place if our plan is to work.

We walk to Boughton frequently which is the home of Charles Uncle Henry Walker who is a traveller in linens. It is quite a long walk, being in St John’s across the river, and almost out of town to the west. Uncle Henry is away much of the time, so his wife spends those days with their son Henry who has a motherless child. Often however the family with married children gather together again at Boughton. Charles thinks of it as his second home.

June 22nd
I had another visitor today. What a full week this has been for exercising my social skills. Mrs. Brown (she also asked me to call her by her first name, Emily) came and took tea with me. She is closer in age to me, and has one child, a daughter who is also called Emily and is nearly one. She is tall and thin. Her hair is nut brown and she wears it in curls, her features are not soft or pretty, or very regular, but neither were they in any degree plain, and I thought them expressive. I was so pleased to have her in my house.

Emily told me that most of the women with young children in this area have nurses who care for the children most of the time. I can hardly speculate about how circumstances will be for us when we “adopt” our baby back in a year’s time. I will call at Emily’s house next week.

Charles says we are invited to an Open House Party at Landsdown Villa on Saturday July 9th. To my amazement it is the Mayor of Worcester who lives there. He is called Joseph Wood and his wife is called Maria, not that I would assume to call her by her first name. I shall have to take lessons in how to address a Mayor. I wonder if my new friends from our road will be invited too. I hope so. I wonder what Mother and Elizabeth will think of this tale; I will write to them straight away. I believe Charles knows Mayor Wood slightly through his being a customer. I went for a walk today to see where Lansdown Villa is, exactly. You go to the end of the garden gate road for Lansdown Crescent, and turn to the right, and his property takes in most of the land between there and the top of Lansdown Crescent where the entries for those houses are. I think that area is even more wonderful than the houses on Rainbow Terrace, which is where I have decided we should live when Charles gets made a partner. The Mayor’s house is by far the biggest house I have ever seen in this area, and the view is straight over the city. You can see 3 spires and 4 square church towers from there. And of course the wonderful Malvern Hills in the distance.

June 26th
We went to Malvern today and did some sketching. I will try to recreate my version of the Priory. We had lunch at Foley Arms Hotel, just at the top of the road in Great Malvern before you go down to the Priory. It was a very ornate hotel, with a huge gong just inside the door. I wondered if they strike it in the evening for the hotel guests to come to dinner. We sat in the leather chairs in the lounge and sipped a sherry until our table was ready. The dining area had a wonderful view with the Abberley Hills and the Lickey Hills in the back, and a green hill close by, which the owner identified for us, but I have forgotten the name. Luckily they had a vegetarian choice on the menu, so Charles was satisfied. I wished that I could have the chicken, as I really miss having meat, but I must not let Charles down. The couple at the next table were very disappointed with their meal as they said the food was cold. The man who had ordered Roast eef and Yorkshire Pudding asked the waitress to bring hot gravy, but she took such a long time over it that he in the end refused to eat any of it. She was very apologetic and offered him another meal – but he just had cheesecake for dessert instead. I expect he refused to pay his bill, or at least part of it, but we left before they did, so I can’t know for certain. His wife ate her food, and looked most uncomfortable at his making such a fuss.

I have decided to list the jobs that need doing and when I shall do them each week, leaving time for my visiting.

Mondays, I shall change the bed linen, do the washing, and then in the afternoons, I shall make time for mending and sewing and reading. And each evening I must make the evening meal and clean up after it.

Tuesdays I will iron in the mornings, but leave my afternoons free for calling on friends. If I have no plans for visiting, I can spend the time with embroidery and writing my poetry.

Wednesdays, my “At Home” days, I need to be available in the afternoon to entertain guests. As it is a market day, if I need to I can slip down to Angel Place first thing. Then I shall spend time tidying the parlour and light dusting, and I can write letters and read as and when there is time between guests. Charles says that most guests will only stay for fifteen minutes.

Thursdays, again a day when I might well be visiting in the afternoons, I shall plan to do shopping in the morning, unless I have gone to the market on Wednesday, and do any other cooking in advance than can be done.

Friday will be my heavy cleaning day, and I shall clean the carpets, scrub the floors and black-lead the range. I also make a list of needs for the weekly shopping.

Saturday, Charles works most Saturday mornings and sometimes has to be in all day. When he is free, he and I love to spend the time shopping for groceries together. He knows which foods he enjoys and where the best prices can be obtained. In the afternoons, we walk somewhere if the weather is fine. Charles spends time in the evenings when I am washing and tidying the house after tea seeing to his garden, but he occasionally has a longer stretch there also on Saturdays.

Sundays we go to church, and either go to visit his relatives or have some of them around to see us afterwards. We nearly all go to the same church, St Martin’s so it is a good time to catch up on all the family news. We often take trips out to local beauty spots on fine weekends.

June 29th
I called in to see Emily today, as this is her “At Home” day. She lives at 7 Rainbow Hill Terrace, and has quite a large house for their small family. It was the first time I have seen the inside of any of the Rainbow Terrace Houses. There are 9 of them in all, and she says they are all different, and not even built at the same time. They all have walls joined to the next at the side, and all have gardens that extend downwards to the road that is just above where we live. The rooms were very spacious and the decoration was very fine. I took particular note as this is the row of houses in which I one day hope we will live. Her husband in a Linen Draper so I will might consult with him when I get around to making new curtains. Her chairs and sofas were covered with pale yellow draperies; walls hung with many pictures in gilt frames; fine ornaments graced the mantelpiece; a pendant hung from the centre of the ceiling, and she had pale green muslin curtains.

She seemed as pleased to see me as I was to see her. I think we shall be firm friends. She has a kind if rather plain face, but a very generous outlook. I do so long for someone to share my thoughts with. The days are so long when Charles is at work, and this tiny house doesn’t take long at all to keep clean now that I have created a routine for myself. I spend some time most days in the garden, but Charles feels that it is his project, and he wants to do all the heavy work. I only go to pick vegetables and flowers of which we have a grand supply. I shall make a special vegetable soup tonight.

Since Charles is a vegetarian, we rely heavily on soups to go with our egg and cheese dishes. I do find it difficult to have much variation in our meals. And being a vegetarian it is difficult to use things like ambergris and musk which are traditionally used to flavour jellies, but they are products of animals, and therefore Charles doesn’t feel happy using them. Luckily we can use agar agar which is made from seaweed but has similar properties. I must see if I can find a supply locally. Charles is the secretary for the Vegetarian society, so I wrote to the head office and asked if they had a recipe book of vegetarian foods which I might buy. It turns out that the first president James Simpson died recently and his father-in-law William Harvey took over from him. His sister Mary Harvey wrote first Vegetarian Cookbook in 1812. Charles will send him a postal order to buy one for us.

I will also check with my new neighbours to see if they have any good recipes to share with me. I told Charles that since Jesus is mentioned several times in the Bible as eating fish, surely it cannot be wrong to do so. He says he sees my point, and he has agreed that he will occasionally eat fish so I have been checking out Mrs. Acton’s cookery book for how to do it.

This is what she says:
The cook should be well acquainted with the signs of freshness and good condition in fish, as they are most unwholesome articles of food when stale, and many of them are also dangerous eating when they are out of season The eyes should always be bright, the gills of a fine clear red, the body stiff, the flesh firm, yet elastic to the touch, and the smell not disagreeable. When all these marks are reversed, and the eyes are sunken, the gills very dark in hue, the fish itself flabby and of offensive odour, it is bad, and should be avoided.
Eels should be alive and brisk in movement when they are purchased, but the 'horrid barbarity,' as it is truly designated, of skinning and dividing them while they are so, is without excuse, as they are easily destroyed 'by piercing the spinal marrow close to the back part of the skull with a sharp pointed knife or skewer. If this be done in the right place all motion will instantly cease.' We quote Dr. Kitchener's assertion on this subject; but we know that the mode of destruction which he recommends is commonly practised by the London fishmongers. Boiling water also will immediately cause vitality to cease, and is perhaps the most humane and ready method of destroying the fish.

I am not sure that we are quite ready to hazard into the realm of eating eels just yet. I think I prefer Mrs. Acton’s poems. I feel bad when I think she is no longer with us. I particularly like this one, as blue is my favourite colour and Susanna one of my favourite names.

To Susanna. February 1824
by Eliza Acton

Amidst the first young flow'rs of spring,
Which o'er this still, and lonely spot,
A gleam of grace and beauty fling,
I found a pale "Forget me not!"

I will not send so frail a thing,
My herald to a distant spot,
But sunnier hours to thee shall bring
A fair and bright, "Forget me not!"

It makes my attempts at poetry seem rather paltry, but I have had another try. This one I have not titled, but it is meant to be about when I first met Charles after I had grown out of childhood. I used poetic license, because I have known him ever so long, and it was all much more relaxed and comfortable than the poem makes it sound. But what is true is that his voice is ever so wonderful, and I always thought of that first about him when he was away. It is deep and rich and very polished.

POEM ABOUT CHARLES

I knew him not, I sought him not,
He was my father’s guest.
I gave him not one smile more kind
Than that I gave the rest.

And wherefore did he tell me this
His praises made me vain
And when he left me how I longed
To hear that voice again.

I feel that I need to add some more to finish it off, but have no more time at present.