HOLLAND HOUSE AND GARDENS 



witness can never give a direct answer " (an allusion to his brilliant 

 repartees at a celebrated state trial) under the same date we 

 read : " The Brest fleet is out, and the alarm is great." It is 

 noticeable that Lady Holland's wit is less caustic at this time 

 than in after years. At any rate, she spares her friends in public, 

 and confines her sarcasms to her " Journal." 



But although she shows nothing outwardly of the mother- 

 hunger that is gnawing at her heart, it is significant of mental 

 unrest to find her spending so much of her time alone in the grounds. 

 ' I passed a great part of the evening and night in the garden," 

 she writes ; " the weather is delicious and the nightingales in the 

 full vigour of song." And thereupon, much as a jester laughs and 

 jokes whilst his heart is breaking, she passes to that unfailing 

 topic which we all employ sometimes to camouflage our deepest 

 feelings the weather. 



' The spring," she remarks, " is very tardy ; vegetation is now 

 as it was in the first week of May," and she repeats : " Our garden 

 is delicious, Drew and I have begun our lounging walks in the 

 Green Lane in the garden chair." 



But we have the truth at last ! "I have been out of spirits," 

 she writes, " at the approach of a crisis very painful to my feelings ; 

 but my duty and justice, compel me. I shall now be obliged to 

 dwell on the particulars Heaven knows the agony I endure." 



The denouement follows ; on June 19th she says : "I restored 

 to her father my little daughter Harriet . . . she was here with 

 my mother and has now gone," and on the following day she 

 adds : '" On Sunday the event took place, there was a sort of scene 

 at dinner. Sydney Smith, William Lamb " (afterwards Lord 

 Melbourne) " were present. . . . The story is very much talked 

 about but ... I had rather hear nothing of the fables engrafted 

 on it. I only feel I have renounced a darling child . . . would to 

 God I were allowed to bring her up ! ' : 



The entry closes with the matter of fact statement significant 

 owing to its studied indifference : " To-day Digby, and A. S. Bess- 

 boro dined. We went into the garden and stayed late." 



Thus abruptly closes the tragic story, and it loses nothing in 

 pitifulness, and poignancy, because Lady Holland's own offence 

 was the immediate cause of the tragic happening ; for surely the 

 ultimate one was the early and loveless marriage ? 



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