Jane Welsh Carlyle

The Lady Harriet years-1

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HEALTH:

1 The Lady Harriet Years

Lady Harriet Baring

Carlyle first met Lady Harriet Baring (later Lady Ashburton) in 1839, but the two women did not meet until 1843. Until Lady Ashburton died in 1857, fourteen years later, this odd triangular relationship was to cause distress to both the Carlyles, but little to Lady Ashburton. It has been alleged – initially by Sir James Crichton-Browne - that Jane became mentally ill during this period, that she was deluded, and that her jealousy and ill-temper were the products of a fevered imagination, fuelled by the morphia she took for insomnia.

Lady Harriet Montagu was the eldest daughter of the 6th Earl of Sandwich. Born into the aristocracy, she married Bingham Baring, the heir to a vast family fortune. His father, Lord Ashburton, who had been created a Baron in 1835, died in 1848 and the title went to Lady Harriet’s husband: Lady Baring was now Lady Ashburton. He, a liberal Tory who served under Peel, originally had two houses: Bay House, on the coast of Hampshire, near Portsmouth, and a farm called Addiscombe, in what are now the suburbs of Croydon, ten miles south of central London. To these were added Bath House in Piccadily, the family town house, and the Grange, at New Alresford in inland Hampshire, a vast neo-classical pile. They also rented Highland shooting lodges in the summer.

The Grange

Lady Baring was a large woman, not physically attractive, but highly intelligent, and one of the outstanding hostesses of her time, gathering political and literary celebrities to her houses, charming them, and dismissing them when she tired of them.

The prurient should know at once that there was never any question of a sexual relationship between Carlyle and the Lady; Jane was always certain of this, which says much about their own marriage. In 1843 she wrote to Jeannie Welsh, at a time when Carlyle had proposed inviting Geraldine Jewsbury to stay at Cheyne Row. Miss Jewsbury was notorious for falling in love with every man she met:
‘…tho’ I am not jealous of my husband (pray read this unto yourself and burn the letter) tho’ I have not only his habit of preference for me over all other women (and habits are much stronger to him than passions) but also his indifference to all women as women to secure me against jealousy – still young women who have in them, as Geraldine has, with all her good and great qualities, a born spirit of intrigue are perilous sort of inmates for a married pair to invite- they may make mischief in other ways than by seducing the husband’s affections.’

First Meeting

Carlyle first met Lady Harriet at Bath House, home of Lord Ashburton, at a dinner in 1839 given by her husband, William Bingham Baring, Lord Ashburton’s son and heir. He reported to his mother:
‘The Lady of the House, one Lady Harriet Baring, I had to sit and talk with specially for a long while; one of the cleverest creatures I have met with, full of mirth and spirit – not very beautiful to look upon.’
Of the dinner, he wrote: ‘..one of the most elevated things I have ever seen; Lords, Ladyships and other high personnages[sic] ‘

This was not the kind of thing to which he had been accustomed. Jane once essayed a soiree but it was not a success, and she concentrated on keeping open house to their many visitors, and having ‘at homes’.

Carlyle continued to accept invitations from Lady Harriet and by 1843 was a regular visitor, and the subject of London gossip as a result. Although it was four years before Jane was to meet her, this was not so unusual as it seems now, for men regularly attended social functions without their wives, and Lady Harriet took a liberated view of such matters. Before Jane met her she heard much about her:
‘…there is one new female in whom he takes a vast amount of pleasure, Lady Harriet Baring. I have always omitted to tell you how marvellously that liaison has gone on. Geraldine seems horribly jealous about it – nay almost “scandalised” – while she was here – for my part I am singularly inaccessible to jealousy, and am pleased rather that he has found one agreeable house to which he likes to go and goes regularly – one evening in the week at least – and then he visits them at their “farm” on Sundays and there are flights of charming little notes always coming to create a pleasing titillation of the philosophic spirit!’

Thus Jane to her friend and confidante Jeannie Welsh in May 1843, and already one can detect a bitter note underlying the effort to make light of the matter.

Jane’s mother had died the previous year, and she was in poor health, with winter colds and frequent headaches, but, although her letters were fewer, not ill enough to prevent her entertaining a large social circle of her own friends, male and female. But the headaches were severe. After cooking a dinner for Thackeray and Fitzgerald, she fainted in one of them, and was retching and semi-conscious for some three hours, although she had recovered by the next day. During the year her husband told her that her face was green and her eyes bloodshot. For much of the time she felt ‘all beaten into impalpable pulp’.

Jane’s first Meeting

Her friend Mrs Buller finally brought the two women together, saying to Jane that she should ‘see a little into the thing with her own eyes.’

Jane was impressed:
‘I like her on the whole – she is immensely large – might easily have been one of the ugliest women living – but is almost beautiful – simply thro’ the intelligence and cordiality of her expression – I saw nothing of the impertinence and hauteur that people impute to her….just the wittiest woman I have ever seen…’

And Lady Harriet must have been impressed too – she wrote to Carlyle saying that she planned to visit Jane, adding ‘she is a reality that you have hitherto quite suppressed.’

1844

The frequent visits continued and in the following year Carlyle was invited to stay with the Barings for the first time:
‘Lady Harriet like the Queen must have her court about her wherever she goes or stays, she has summoned Carlyle down to The Grange for a week at the least – and he never by any chance refuses a wish of hers – the clever woman that she is.’

Meantime, her husband was sending extraordinary notes to his new friend:
‘Sunday, yes my Benificent, it shall be then: the dark man shall again see the daughter of the Sun for a little while; and be illuminated, as if he were not dark! Which he justly reckons among the highest privileges he has at present. Poor creature! My wife will follow, on Monday or Tuesday, according to your will.’ (2/1844)

Carlyle seems to see himself as some Elizabethan courtier, and casts himself in the role of some unworthy slave. It is clear that he is bowled over by the woman, and especially by her rank. Such missives are frequent and no less odd in the years to come.

Jane paid her first visit to Bath House in the following year and found her hostess ‘very gracious and agreeable.’ ‘I can see she has a genius for ruling – whilst I have a genius for – not being ruled!’ Lady Harriet was taking Jane up too: the Carlyles were invited to spend the whole winter at Alverstoke, and she paid her first call to Cheyne Row, when Jane was embarrassed by the presence of an uncouth Edinburgh cousin. Lady Harriet decided that Jane’s ill-health would be helped by getting her out more, and took the Carlyles to the ballet to see La Sylphide – they didn’t like it: ‘frivolous’ was their verdict, and Jane had headaches for days after the outing.

She was gloomy at this time following the death of her friend Cavaignac –her exact contemporary – and was tearful at times.
‘The sad fact is I have been in a sad way for a long while, and was not saying anything to anyone – indeed I was ashamed to talk of illness which had taken the form chiefly of frightening depression of spirits – giving me occasional apprehension that I was going out of my mind – I knew that the thing was physical but that consciousness did not make it the less painful and alarming for me – on the contrary the feeling that this illness in a part of me viz my body, which was quite beyond my control made me only the more afraid. It is just weakness and irrationality I complain of.’

She told Carlyle eventually; he was horrified and said she must get away.

Her remarks that her complaints were physical has led to speculation that she was menopausal at this time – there is no convincing evidence for this claim.

She and Carlyle continued to dose themselves regularly with mercury. In April, 1845, she inadvertently overdosed, taking 5 grains instead of her usual half grain. He had collected his own much stronger pills at the chemist when sent for hers!

There was one consolation to all her health problems: when she was ill she found that her men friends were more sympathetic and visited more.

1845-46

The invitations and the visits grew more frequent; Jane grew more unhappy and unwell. In July, 1845 she visited Addiscombe for four days, and recorded that they had to walk two or three miles from the nearest station, and that she slept for a total of 1 hour 40 minutes during her stay. At home afterwards she wrote: ‘my husband always writing, I always ailing.’

In November they were off to Bay House for a stay of six weeks, where the sea air helped Jane’s complaints. She found Lady Harriet as ‘kind as possible,’ and ‘perfectly regardless of rank.’ She did not find her haughty and capricious as others did but ‘I am sure I shall never feel warm affection for her, nor inspire her with warm affection…’ (to JW, 16/11/45).

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