Matilda Tennyson
September
15 1816- July
31 1913
The middle sister, Matilda Tennyson was a tall, olive
skinned woman with a strong, rugged face,
‘A
creature without gall or guile’ one of her friends would describe her to
be. She was a natural observer, a female
‘my
uncle Toby’ is how her nephew Lionel, Alfred’s second son, described her
with infinite purity, innocence and cleverness. One of her chief
characteristics was that she never married and kept a naivety that was
remarkable even amongst the Tennyson family.
To her brothers she was a favorite usually
because she would pass many jokes about the goings on, alleged flirtations of
The Empress Maud’ when travelling between Farringford House and Park House. It
is recorded that she would put up her umbrella and sit under it without
embarrassment for an entire church service when it was drafty. To really get an
understanding of her strong and intense personality, the family would remember
one specific occurrence when she got into an argument with a salesman in a
crowded London shop when discussing the capacity of a hip-bath (bath tub) which
he was trying to sell her. She gathered up her ample skirts, stepped into the
bath tub and lay down in her black bonnet and veil, button boots, flowing
cloak, umbrella, to the horror of the salesman but the delight of the crowded
customers.
‘Tilly’ as she was
nicknamed, had the ‘
black-broodiness’
of her other siblings and descendants before her which led to her being
somewhat of a religious obsessive. For
instance, she was a strong Calvinist who would spend entire days sometimes
weeping over the fate of her siblings, whom she believed to all be eternally
damned.
She had an intense and absorbing
love of music which her family believed led to a passionate affection toward an
opera singer she adored, Teresa Tietjens, who died in 1877. After Matilda’s
death in 1913, were found amongst her papers some highly emotional fragments of
verse about the singer, and a sheet of deep edged mourning paper enfolding a
lock of hair, and written in Matilda’s handwriting.
‘This paper holds my beloved
Teresa’s hair. I have kissed it many times. It is a great comfort to me to have
it. Oh when shall I see her again! I shall never have another friend upon earth
like her. I hope God will permit me to meet her again. This thought bears me
up.’
Teresa Tietjens
After her mother’s death, Matilda went to stay at her
brother Alfred’s house, Farringford but her complaints about the climate and
surroundings of the house distressed Alfred’s wife, Lady Tennyson. Emily and Matilda never really got along very well. It was
Hallam and Lionel, her nephews, aged fourteen and twelve, who took her to their
hearts immediately. They made her join in all their games and adventures slowly
pulling her out of her shell. Once acclimated to her surroundings she relaxed
and was devoted to her brother, Alfred. It was after his death in 1892, she
never could bring herself to visit Farringford again even though her sister-in-law
and nephews still lived there. Emily and the boys were deeply attached by then
and did write to each other over the years. If only Matilda could bring herself
to visit Farringford again. It does my heart well to know that she would on
occasion go to Aldworth located on Black Down near Haslemere on Surrey and
later in fact lived out the rest of her days at her sister, Cecilia’s house Park
House in Maidstone, Kent, England. She lived well into the twentieth century,
passing away on July 31, 1913.
Cecilia Lushington nee Tennyson
October 10, 1817-March 18, 1909
Lincs website copyright photograph
Cecilia was in many ways the most attractive of the sisters.
She was quite tall, beautiful face but the men found her body to be skinny and
without curves. She was less serious than her sister Mary, less aggressive than
Emily (Emilia), more sophisticated than Matilda. She was called the ‘eccentric’
of the family and rather unselfconscious to the horror of her siblings and the worry
of her husband, Edmund Law Lushington, Fellow of Trinity and Professor of Latin
at the University of Glasgow. She suffered from poor health and the winters in
Glasgow didn’t help, ‘black and thick fog…made more hellish often by a red glow
through it all proceeding from the numerous fires in this city of dirt and
dumps’ Cecilia was devoted to Edmund and
they were married on October 10th, 1842, in Boxley, Kent, England. In
the 1850 edition of Alfred Tennyson’s poem, In Memoriam, you will read an
epilogue written about his sister’s marriage to Edmund. (photo and painting below of Edmund Law Lushington)
In Memoriam, Epilogue,
[O true and tried, so well and long] by Lord Alfred Tennyson, 1809 - 1892
O
true and tried, so well and long,
Demand
not thou a marriage lay;
In
that it is thy marriage day
Is
music more than any song.
Nor
have I felt so much of bliss
Since
first he told me that he loved
A
daughter of our house; nor proved
Since
that dark day a day like this;
Tho’
I since then have number’d o’er
Some
thrice three years: they went and came,
Remade
the blood and changed the frame,
And
yet is love not less, but more;
No
longer caring to embalm
In
dying songs a dead regret,
But
like a statue solid-set,
And
moulded in colossal calm.
Regret
is dead, but love is more
Than
in the summers that are flown,
For
I myself with these have grown
To
something greater than before;
Which
makes appear the songs I made
As
echoes out of weaker times,
As
half but idle brawling rhymes,
The
sport of random sun and shade.
But
where is she, the bridal flower,
That
must be made a wife ere noon?
She
enters, glowing like the moon
Of
Eden on its bridal bower:
On
me she bends her blissful eyes
And
then on thee; they meet thy look
And
brighten like the star that shook
Betwixt
the palms of paradise.
O
when her life was yet in bud,
He
too foretold the perfect rose.
For
thee she grew, for thee she grows
For
ever, and as fair as good.
And
thou art worthy; full of power;
As
gentle; liberal-minded, great,
Consistent;
wearing all that weight
Of
learning lightly like a flower.
But
now set out: the noon is near,
And
I must give away the bride;
She
fears not, or with thee beside
And
me behind her, will not fear.
For
I that danced her on my knee,
That
watch’d her on her nurse’s arm,
That
shielded all her life from harm
At
last must part with her to thee;
Now
waiting to be made a wife,
Her
feet, my darling, on the dead
Their
pensive tablets round her head,
And
the most living words of life
Breathed
in her ear. The ring is on,
The
‘wilt thou’ answer’d, and again
The
‘wilt thou’ ask’d, till out of twain
Her
sweet ‘I will’ has made you one.
Now
sign your names, which shall be read,
Mute
symbols of a joyful morn,
By
village eyes as yet unborn;
The
names are sign’d, and overhead
Begins
the clash and clang that tells
The
joy to every wandering breeze;
The
blind wall rocks, and on the trees
The
dead leaf trembles to the bells.
O
happy hour, and happier hours
Await
them. Many a merry face
Salutes
them?maidens of the place,
That
pelt us in the porch with flowers.
O
happy hour, behold the bride
With
him to whom her hand I gave.
They
leave the porch, they pass the grave
That
has to-day its sunny side.
To-day
the grave is bright for me,
For
them the light of life increased,
Who
stay to share the morning feast,
Who
rest to-night beside the sea.
Let
all my genial spirits advance
To
meet and greet a whiter sun;
My
drooping memory will not shun
The
foaming grape of eastern France.
It
circles round, and fancy plays,
And
hearts are warm’d and faces bloom,
As
drinking health to bride and groom
We
wish them store of happy days.
Nor
count me all to blame if I
Conjecture
of a stiller guest,
Perchance,
perchance, among the rest,
And,
tho’ in silence, wishing joy.
But
they must go, the time draws on,
And
those white-favour’d horses wait;
They
rise, but linger; it is late;
Farewell,
we kiss, and they are gone.
A
shade falls on us like the dark
From
little cloudlets on the grass,
But
sweeps away as out we pass
To
range the woods, to roam the park,
Discussing
how their courtship grew,
And
talk of others that are wed,
And
how she look’d, and what he said,
And
back we come at fall of dew.
Again
the feast, the speech, the glee,
The
shade of passing thought, the wealth
Of
words and wit, the double health,
The
crowning cup, the three-times-three,
And
last the dance;?till I retire:
Dumb
is that tower which spake so loud,
And
high in heaven the streaming cloud,
And
on the downs a rising fire:
And
rise, O moon, from yonder down,
Till
over down and over dale
All
night the shining vapour sail
And
pass the silent-lighted town,
The
white-faced halls, the glancing rills,
And
catch at every mountain head,
And
o’er the friths that branch and spread
Their
sleeping silver thro’ the hills;
And
touch with shade the bridal doors,
With
tender gloom the roof, the wall;
And
breaking let the splendour fall
To
spangle all the happy shores
By
which they rest, and ocean sounds,
And,
star and system rolling past,
A
soul shall draw from out the vast
And
strike his being into bounds,
And,
moved thro’ life of lower phase,
Result
in man, be born and think,
And
act and love, a closer link
Betwixt
us and the crowning race
Of
those that, eye to eye, shall look
On
knowledge, under whose command
Is
Earth and Earth’s, and in their hand
Is
Nature like an open book;
No
longer half-akin to brute,
For
all we thought and loved and did,
And
hoped, and suffer’d, is but seed
Of
what in them is flower and fruit;
Whereof
the man, that with me trod
This
planet, was a noble type
Appearing
ere the times were ripe,
That
friend of mine who lives in God,
That
God, which ever lives and loves,
One
God, one law, one element,
And
one far-off divine event,
To
which the whole creation moves.
Cecilia Lushington nee Tennyson
Park House,
Maidstone, became a haven for The Lushington’s. Friends and acquaintances
describe Cecilia Lushington, as singing strange ballads with passion by
standing behind the drawing room door then slowly entering into the room. Like
the rest of The Tennyson’s she read verse beautifully, in a rich deep voice, especially,
Alfred’s ‘Northern Farmers.’ She used to
play charades by acting out the most unsuitable parts dressed in a rough jacket,
neckerchief, and waistcoat. Her family hated it but she loved it! Cecilia gave birth to four children: only
son, Edmund,(Eddy) born in 1843, had died in 1856. Emily,(Emmy) the eldest
girl, died in 1868 at the age of nineteen, and Lucia Maria, (Lucy) died five
years later at twenty-one. Only the second daughter, Cecilia (Zilly) named
after her mother lived to grow up. All the children seemed to have considerable
ability and charm and only one volume of Lucy’s verse, survives, privately
published in 1880 by Frederick Bunyard, Maidstone.
O
sweeter far the dying day
Than
golden sunrise on the hills,
To
watch the faint light fade away
Altho’
the evening shadow chills,
O
sweeter far the falling leaves
Than
verdant groves in summer’s prime,
Altho’
the heart grows faint and grieves
To
watch the fair decay of time.
O
sweeter far the close of life
Than
youth in all its vain unrest,
The
peace of death than earthly strife,
To
love and grieve and die is best.
Mrs. Lushington
herself published three books. The first, Fifty
Years in Sandbourne, was issued by Griffith and Farran of St. Paul’s Church
Yard in New York by E.P. Dutton and Co., in 1880. This story of only 105 pages,
was considered her best work. The story focuses on an old fisherman of ninety,
his daughter-in-law, Jane Knight, and her three year old granddaughter. It is a
tragic tale. Jane lost her husband six months after her marriage; her only
children, twin boys, have both been drowned as young men and the little boat in
which Jack knight had taken his paralyzed brother Dick out for a row was
overturned by a sudden storm. The shock was too much for Jack’s wife Mary who
died, leaving their three year old daughter an orphan. In the end he is saved
by the old parson with Cecilia explaining, ‘How should I make that poor boy resigned?
If I were to go and tell him he ought to be resigned to a shock and a blight on
his life such as this, wouldn’t he feel, if he didn’t say, “You talk of what
you know nothing about,” and wouldn’t this be the truth?’ In the end he
gives the poor boy strength in a touching scene where his true feelings come
out.
Fifty Years in Sandbourne was followed a year later with Margaret the Moonbeam, A Story for the
Young (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1881). This is a small volume of 180 pages,
where we meet little Margaret, an orphan taken by her bachelor uncle to live
with him in his house near ‘Ademstone’ an obvious rhyme for Maidstone, (their
own home Park House). In this novel,
Cecilia used it as a reason to include her love of poetry. Every chapter is
introduced with poems that take up half the pages. Some by Wordsworth,
Longfellow, Alfred Tennyson even! Sometimes you will find one of Cecilia’s own
poems:
Why
Master, good Master, why do you stop?
What
can you be looking at there?
Did
you never see water spin round like a top
That
at it you stupidly stare?
It’s
that new little girl who has made you so queer,
Why
can’t she come on and make haste?
I
would not for worlds disrespectful appear
But
I’m really surprised at your taste.
I’m
ready to swim or to race at your call,
Or
to leap to and fro like a frog,
But
to stand idly staring at nothing at all
Is
too much for a sensible dog.
Margaret the Moonbeam had some success with the second edition
published in 1883. Upon the favorable reviews of her first novel, Fifty Years in Sandbourne, her
publishing company, Griffith and Farran, published Cecilia’s third book, Over the Seas and Far Away in 1882, a
Victorian romance. You can quickly remember that this authoress is the sibling
of the Poet Laureate just by reading the opening page with her description of
the sea, ‘In front nothing but this boundless open plain of water; all silent,
except for a soft, hushing hiss pressed on the sand by the tiniest ripple; all
motionless except for the wavy tremor which told that in the midst of its calm
the heart of the mighty sea was living’ (pg 22). (Copies of all three novels can be found in
the British Museum and The Tennyson Research Centre in Lincoln).
Cecilia
Lushington outlived her husband by sixteen years remaining at Park House with
her spinster, sister Matilda. Cecilia lived on the east side of the house and
Matilda on the west over the dining room. The late Mr. Godrey L. Lushington of
Woodlawn Park, Loose, near Maidstone, remembered Cecilia as a very old woman, ‘always wearing a white knitted woolen cap,
carrying a large black bag, and walking with a stick.’ She went out very
little in summer or winter; sometimes after tea she would wander out through
the hall, stopping on the way to stroke the bust of her long lost little son
and talk to it affectionately for a few moments. After roaming around the lawn
for twenty minutes or so she would come back into the drawing room, saying to
her daughter, ‘Very dark tonight, Zilly,’
to which Zilly would reply, ‘Of course it
is, dear, the sun has gone down.’
Cecilia Lushington passed away at Park House on March 18th,
1909. The Lushington’s along with their children are buried at St Mary
the Virgin and All Saints Churchyard, Boxley, Maidstone Borough Kent, England.
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