Edmund Bertram's Diary

1800 JULY

Tuesday 8 July

Tom was eager to try out his new horse’s paces and so we rode out together this morning, jumping walls and hedges, until he was satisfied he had made a good bargain.

‘Did you ever see such an animal?’ he asked me, as he reined in his horse. ‘I would never have been able to get him so cheap if Travis had not lost so heavily at cards. But Travis never learns. A man with such infernal luck should stick to spil ikins.’ He looked around him, letting his eyes wander over our father’s fields, down to the river at the bottom of the hill, and across the water to the woods beyond, but he did not see them as I did, as something to which he belonged. ‘I tell you, Edmund, I am longing to be free,’ he said. ‘I am tired of the country.’

‘We will soon be back at Eton.’

‘I am tired of Eton, too.’

‘It is not long now before we go to Oxford.’

‘Ay. Only one year more, and then I will be out in the world, instead of rotting away at school. I mean to have a fine time of it, I can tell you.’

‘What do you intend to study?’ I asked him, for it was a problem that vexed me, and I wondered if he had found the answer to it.

‘Women!’ he said, with a laugh. He turned to me. ‘But never fear, little brother, I will not seduce them all, I will leave one or two for you.’

And so saying, he wheeled his horse and raced for home.

I found myself thinking about Oxford as I raced after him. It is only two more years until I, too, will leave Eton and go up to university. I have still not thought how to answer Father’s question as to what I intend to do with the future. I have no taste for the Army or the Navy, but I must have something to do with my time, I suppose, and I hope the next few years will make my feelings clearer.

Friday 11 July

Aunt Norris was talking about little Fanny Price again this afternoon. Tom stood up as soon as she opened her mouth, for he is sick of hearing about it.

‘Let them do good if they must, but let them stop prattling about it beforehand!’ he muttered to me as he passed.

As I followed him, I heard Aunt Norris saying, ‘We must offer the child a home, for my poor sister has such a large family she cannot afford to look after them all...’

And my father saying, ‘It is a serious charge, for if we decide to take her in, we must adequately provide for her hereafter, or there will be cruelty instead of kindness in taking her from her family in Portsmouth.’

And Mama saying it was a great shame Mrs. Price had married to disoblige her family, settling on an idle fellow who was a lieutenant of marines, instead of looking higher and marrying a man of property. ‘For I am sure she was pretty enough to do so.’

I followed Tom as he headed for the stables.

‘What a fuss about a ten-year-old brat!’ he said. ‘Though I wonder my father is deceived by Aunt Norris’s profession of a desire to be useful. She will find an excuse not to take the brat when the time comes, you will see, and Mama and Papa will have to do it all.’ He looked up at the sky, where black clouds had started to gather. ‘It looks like rain. What say you we go into the barn and practice our archery?’

We did as he suggested, and I took pleasure in beating him soundly. He was put out, and blustered that he had not been paying attention.

We emerged from the barn an hour later, better from our exercise, and returned to the house, where we learnt that Tom’s prediction had come true. Aunt Norris had said that Uncle Norris was too ill to have a child in the house, and it has been settled that Fanny will come to us.

Saturday 12 July

Maria and Julia did nothing but complain about Fanny’s advent this morning as the four of us went riding, until Tom had had enough.

‘Why must you be so tiresome?’ he asked. ‘Can you not talk about anything else? You have done nothing but groan about Fanny since we came out.’ And to me he said, ‘This is our reward for allowing two silly little girls to accompany us on our morning ride.’

‘Julia might be a little girl, but I am almost a woman!’ said Maria indignantly. ‘It will not be long before I put my hair up and put my skirts down.’

‘You are only a year older than me,’ retorted Julia.

‘But it is an important year. There is a great deal of difference between thirteen and twelve,’ said Maria loftily.

‘Not so very much, and besides, Mama says I always behave like a lady.’

‘She says you must always behave like a lady,’ returned Maria. ‘That is not the same thing at all.’

An argument was brewing, and Tom forestalled it by proposing a race to the old barn. Julia crowed when she beat Maria, and Tom rewarded her by saying that he would dance with her after dinner.

‘And you had better dance with Maria,’ he said to me. ‘If we do not teach our sisters how to go on, they might end up marrying wastrels, and then we shall have to offer them charity and raise their brats in our nurseries.’

Maria declared she would marry a baronet. Julia trumped her by saying she would marry two baronets, at which we all began to tease her, until Julia, determined not to admit her blunder, said she would only marry the second one when the first was dead.

Sunday 20 July

I wish Tom would learn to sit still in church. He was fidgeting again during prayers and I was sure Mr. Norris would notice. Mr. Norris said nothing, however, and although Aunt Norris saw what was happening, she said nothing, either, for Tom can do no wrong in her eyes. It is a good thing Papa did not see, or he would have taken Tom to task for not setting a better example to the tenants.