MINTO, September 4, 1840 Went to the village with Mama and my darling Addy [Lord John's stepdaughter], to whom I may show how I love her now that he is away. MINTO, September 7, 1840 Received a very, very sad note from Lord John in answer to mine--so kind, but oh! so sad.

      The note ran as follows:

      September 5, 1840 DEAR LADY FANNY,--You are quite right. I deceived myself, not from any fault of yours, but from a deep sense of unhappiness, and a foolish notion that you might throw yourself away on a person of broken spirits, and worn out by time and trouble. There is nothing left to me but constant and laborious attention to public business, and a wretched sense of misery, which even the children can never long drive away. However, that is my duty, and my portion, and I have no right to murmur at what no doubt is ordained for some good end. So do not blame yourself, and leave me to hope that my life may not be long. Yours truly, J. RUSSELL

      Miss Lister wrote to Lord John on September 9, 1840:

      Sad as your letters are, it is still a relief to have them. I will hope for you though you cannot for yourself. … I cannot thank you as I wish and feel for all you are with regard to the children, for all you have been to them. I never can think of it without tears of gratitude. … You have been more than even an own father could have been. And by your example--an example of all that is good and pure and great in mind and conduct--you are doing for them more than any other teaching can do.

      Page 37.

      For a few days Lady Fanny seems to have felt that the matter was irrevocably settled: "The more I think of what has happened, the more I bewilder myself--I therefore do not think at all."

      But on the following day she writes: "Though I do not think, I dream. I dreamt of him last night on some of Catherine's bride cake, and that Miss Lister wrote to me of him as one whose equal could not be found in the whole world."

      Of one thing she was certain, she did not want to leave her home: "The west hills looking beautiful as we walked round the church. What a pleasure it is to have a church in such a situation! One worships God the better from seeing His beauty so displayed around. … Walked in the glen and wandered about the burn and top of Mama's glen, wondering how anybody could ever ask me to leave all that is so much too dear.

      "Yesterday [October 23] received a letter from Miss Lister. Tells me a great deal about him--the way in which he first named me since, and his keeping the book, and much more that is very, very touching; but I will not sentimentalize even to my journal, for fear of losing my firmness again."

      Meanwhile, gossip was busy coupling her name with Lord John's, and the Press published the rumour.

      Lady Minto to Lady Mary Abercromby MINTO, November 9, 1840 … You will see in the papers the report of Fanny's marriage to Lord John Russell. It is very annoying to her, and I had a few lines (very touching) from him begging me to have it contradicted, which I had already done. If you ask me my reasons why, I cannot tell you, but I have a sort of feeling that she will marry him still. Gina says certainly not, and neither Lizzy nor I think her opinions or feelings changed, but I feel it in my skin!!! Still, these feelings are not infallible. … Will you tell me if I wish it or not? For I have now thought so much about it I don't know my own mind. If I knew that she would not marry at all, if she did not marry him, then I should most miserably lament that she refused him; but I also know as certainly, that if she told me that upon second thoughts she had accepted him, I should be too unhappy to be able to look as I ought to do. In short, dearest Mary, I heartily wish it had never happened. I was obliged to tell John [Elliot] of it, as the report was going to be made a subject of joking, which would have been very unpleasant for Fanny. He was very much surprised, and notwithstanding his great dislike to disparity of years, he regretted her refusal deeply. He is a great admirer of Lord John's, and was delighted with him when he was here. He says that in spite of the drawbacks he is clearly of the opinion that she has made a great mistake, and hopes that it may take another turn still. You may fancy how I am longing to talk to your Father about it. He says in his last letter that his eyes were only just opened to Lord John's being an old man, when he looked on him in this new light. …

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      MINTO, November 15, 1840 My birthday--it frightens me to be twenty-five. To think how days, months, and years have slipped away and how unfulfilled resolutions remain to reproach me. Long walk with Papa--talked to me about Lord John very kindly. Had a long letter from Miss Lister--tells me a good deal about him, and the more I hear the more I am forced to admire and like. Then why am I so ungrateful? Oh! why so obstinate? I can only hope for the sake of my character that Dryden is right that "Love is not in our choice but in our fate."

      At the beginning of the new year the family moved up to London. The next entry, dated from the Admiralty, expressive in its brevity, runs: "A surprising number of visitors, one very alarming, no less than Lord John--and I saw him." Then, a week later, on February 8: "The agitation of last Monday over again. … After all, perhaps he only wished to show that he is friendly still. It is like his kindness, but he did not look merry."

      In March she wrote to her married sister, Lady Mary Abercromby, an account of her feelings and perplexities.

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      ADMIRALTY, March 16, 1841 DEAREST MARY,--Tho' it is not nearly my day for writing, a long letter from you to Mama, principally about myself, has determined me to do so--and to do so this minute, while I feel that I have courage for the great effort (yes, you may laugh, but it is a terrible effort) of saying to you all that you have the best right to abuse me for not having said before. If it was really saying, oh how happy I should be! but there is something so terribly distinct in one's thoughts as soon as they are on paper, and I have longed each day a thousand times to have you by my side to help me to read them and to listen to all my nonsense. I felt it utterly impossible to write them, altho' I also felt that my silence was most unfair upon you and would have made me, in your place, either very suspicious or very angry. It has made you suspicious, but now let it only make you angry--as angry as you please--for I have not changed and I do not suppose I ever shall. When we first came to town, nothing having taken place between us since my positive refusal from Minto, except the contradiction sent by us to the report in the papers, Miss Lister asked me if I was the same as ever; and when I said yes, and forbade her the subject for the future, she only begged that I would see him and allow myself to know him better. I said I would do so, provided she was quite sure he was ready to blame himself alone for the consequences, which she said he would. Accordingly, wherever we met I allowed him to speak to me. I begged Lizzy always to join in our talk, if she could, as it made me much happier, but this she has not done nearly as much as I wished. Whenever I knew we were to meet him, I also took care to tell Lizzy that it would be no pleasure to me, and that if it was at dinner, I hoped I should not sit next to him. I said these things to her oftener than I should naturally have done, because I saw that in her wish to disbelieve them she really did so, and I wished to make her understand me, in case either Papa or Mama or the boys should be speaking of it before her. You will say, why did I not speak more to Mama herself?--partly because I was afraid of bringing forward the subject, partly because I knew what I had to say would make her sorry, and partly because I was not at times so very sure as to have courage to say it must all come to an end. However, after a dinner at Lady Holland's last week, when he was all the evening by me, I felt I must speak--that it would be very wrong to allow it to go on in the same way, and that we had no right to expect