isia-1823] Fanny and Emma at School 141 



t 



Caroline was not regularly handsome but her appearance 

 was very effective; she had brilliant eyes and colouring, and 

 black hair growing low on her wide forehead. " She looked 

 like a Duchess, "her cousin Frank Wedgwood wrote of her. 

 Both were tall, and Susan had both beauty and sweetness. 

 Fanny Allen spoke of Susan as pleasing her extremely : " She 

 is so handsome, so gay and so innocent." Susan Darwin 

 and Jessie Wedgwood, daughter of John Wedgwood and 

 also very pretty, both great flirts 1 in an innocent way, 

 received the nicknames of " Kitty and Lydia " in allusion 

 to Kitty and Lydia in Pride and Prejudice. But we were 

 always told that Susan had a settled resolution against 

 marrying. 



In January, 1822, Fanny and Emma Wedgwood (then 

 aged nearly 16 and 14) were taken up by their mother 

 to London to be placed at school at Greville House, on 

 Paddington Green. Paddington was then a semi -rural 

 village. 



The school was described by Bessy as a comfortable old 

 house, and Mrs Mayer, the mistress, as a good-humoured, 

 motherly sort of woman, but " not strikingly genteel," and 

 she added, " Fanny and Emma went very cheerfully, but 

 shed a few tears at parting." The teaching at this school 

 could not have been very enlightened. In French history 

 they never got beyond Charlemagne, as with every new 

 girl the class began again at the beginning with Clovis. 

 Emma was one of the show performers on the piano, and 

 was one day sent for to play to George IVth's Mrs 

 Fitzherbert. 



All letters to and from the girls were read by Mrs Mayer, 

 and Bessy told Jessie Sismondi that she should not let the 

 girl write to her, as she was sure their letters thus supervised 

 would not be worth the postage. In one letter their mother 

 wrote that she was glad to perceive from their mention of 

 Mrs Mayer to their cousins that they have hearts alive to 

 kindness when it is shewn them. " It mends our hearts to 

 feel warmth towards those that are kind to us, and this I 

 hope will urge you never to forget how kind your aunts have 

 always been to you, and do not forget a message now and 

 then of enquiry or affection towards them." 



She also told them how she was giving prizes for quiet 

 behaviour at the Sunday-school at Maer, which was taught 

 by the family and held in the laundry. There was no week- 



1 My father told me that anything in coat and trousers from eight 

 years to eighty was fair game to Susan. 



