Welsh Journals

A PEMBROKESHIRE COUNTY FAMILY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Part 3. Jk FTER Jessie's marriage there was no longer talk of a permanent home for Emma and Fanny. In future they would stay with their A married relations according to where they were needed most. When her spirits were low Fanny sometimes complained that she felt like 'a little wherry floating on the water', blown in and out of other people's lives. In fact for the next two years she was more or less permanently moored at Cresselly where Mrs. John Allen was glad of her company and help with the children. Though Fanny had little in common with this sister-in-law whose outlook on life was darkened by fears of hell and eternal damnation, in duty bound she had to comply. There was little intellectual stimulation to brighten the daily round of obliging Mrs. Allen, attending to the spoilt, unmanageable children and dutifully visiting old Aunt Jones, her father's sister, who lived down at Creswell Quay. Occasionally the monotony was broken by a dull, stiff dinner at Stackpole Court, but even on the occasion when Bobus Smith, as clever and witty as his brother Sydney, was there 'conversation was con- fined to gossip of high life.' And when the Smiths and other fashionable folk drove over to Cresselly and Fanny sat listening eagerly as Miss Fox told her how Dumont had written from Geneva 'very much in Jessie's praise, that she was generally liked and her manners were so sweet to Sismondi's family', conversation was constantly interrupted by the children who rampaged round the room 'with great sticks in their hands' unchecked by their doting parents. At long intervals Fanny escaped to the more congenial atmosphere of the Wedgwoods at Maer Hall or the Mackintoshes at Mardocks where Sir James was combining his professorial duties with frequent trips to London to sit in the House of Commons and dine with the Hollands or Lord Lansdowne an honoured guest whose every word was listened to with eager and respectful attention. For Fanny at Mardocks there were two unforgettable evenings when Tom Moore who was staying there 'sang with great taste' and she declared that she had 'never enjoyed a day's conversation more than I did that of Sunday, for Mackintosh was better than Mr. Moore and Mr. Moore was very brilliant but without the slightest effort.' On another occasion she met the young reformer Lord John Russell who had come to drink in and profit from Mackintosh's stores of wisdom and learning. At first the diminutive politician's icy demeanour was daunting his manners are so cold that he quells us all, yet there is something pleasing in him