The Big House: The Story of a Country House and its Family. Christopher Sykes Simon

in Hull has it, and it has become a general topick of converstaion here in London – I shall by this means keep up the Connections that will be useful to us in business without having the trouble and expense of seeing them at home.’⁸¹

      To cap it all, Polly was three months pregnant. ‘God Grant that you may arrive to your full time and then to a Speedy Delivery, as well as recovery,’ wrote Uncle Richard in September. ‘I am very much pleased to learn of your rising at six of the Clock, for when the days are so long as to permit it, tis certainly the most pleasantest part of the day.’⁸² When he wrote to her on 3 December, however, he noted that she had been ‘put under some restraint’, and counselled her that ‘if you were not so careful of yourself as you ought to have been, it may now be necessary for your future health.’⁸³ A letter written by Richard to his brother, Mark, a week later revealed that a shadow had fallen across the young couple’s happiness. ‘I am not a little uneasy for Polly’s second Miscarriage and wish the advice they have consulted may have the desired effect for the future.’⁸⁴ By March, Richard was extremly worried. ‘I am under great concern for our niece de Ponthieu,’ he wrote to his brother Joseph. ‘Brother Parson gave me but a very disagreeable account of the state of her health.’⁸⁵ He wrote to Mark suggesting that a trip to Sledmere might do Polly the world of good. ‘I think it was well Judged to come down to try her Native Air since the Doctors that have been consulted could not do her any service. As soon as she is so much better and dare venture to under go the fatigue of a Journey here … I will meet her God permitting at Beverley with our Coach to conduct her here, and I am not without hopes that this air may partly contribute towards re-establishing her in her former state of Health.’⁸⁶

      But it was not to be. Worn down and depressed after her miscarriages, Polly was wasting away, suffering from what appears to have been Anorexia. ‘Her appetite is so bad,’ wrote Richard to Joseph on 20 March, ‘that she does not take nourishment sufficient to support nature, so must in consequence rather lose than gain strength.’⁸⁷ Richard hoped she might be tempted by the Sledmere dishes she had loved in the past, and in April wrote to John de Ponthieu suggesting that she ‘perhaps could eat a Sledmere Pidgeon or a young Rabbitt … and if she can think of anything Else that Either this place or the Neighbourhood can produce that will be acceptable, let me know and will do my best endeavours to obtain it for Her with all the pleasure imaginable’.⁸⁸ By 1 June, however, he noted that ‘every letter gives less encouragement of hopes of our Dear Polly’s recovery’, and went on to admit ‘I must own to you I have been preparing myself for the change these two months past, but while there is Life would hope for the best and pray God support you all and all of us against the Severe Tryal with Christian Patience.’⁸⁹ On 18 June poor old Uncle Richard made the following entry in his pocket book, ‘Niece Polly de Ponthieu died at 7 o’clock of the evening at York.’⁹⁰

      The tragic loss of his beloved Polly receives remarkably little mention in Richard’s correspondence at this time. He took a stoical view, dealing with her death in the same way that, a few months later, he advised his friend Joseph Denison to cope after the death in the same week of both his father and his son. ‘Though these trials to our frail nature … appear very severe requiring great Fortitude of Mind to reconcile ourselves to the all Wise God dispensing providence,’ he wrote, ‘yet we must believe what ever he orders and directs is for the best … Let us sit down and seriously Consider asking ourselves at the same time will my Anxious Soul be benefitted by my unreasonable fretting? Will it not rather Endanger my future Health and constitution, or will it bring him to life again?’ When he had finished dispensing advice, he turned at once to other important matters. ‘Please to buy for us 2lb of best Hyson Tea, 2lb of Fine Green, 4lb of Gongs and 12lb of Common Breakfast Bohea Tea for the servants and send it by shipping to Hull directing it for me to be left at my brother Joseph’s.’⁹¹ Life must go on.

      The death of Polly may well have been tempered by his growing fondness for his three stepchildren, of whom Bella seems to have been a favourite, and many amusing letters passed between them. He praised her artistic endeavours. ‘Shell work properly adapted and a Geneous to Imitate Nature,’ he told her, ‘is not only an agreeable amusement, but very delightful and Entertains both oneself & friends. I apprehend by this time, as it was your Taste before you left Sledmire, that you are a perfect Artist thereof and that you will be able to decorate every Room here where it wants your finishing Handy Work.’⁹² When she took up singing, he gave her a new nickname. ‘I think I must now drop all those familiar Names by which I out of my affection used to Apeller you & as you are become an Italian Singer I must now name you “the Belle Italienne” till another opportunity offers to change again for the better.’⁹³ But perhaps what really drew them together was their shared love of pigs.

      ‘One of your Grunting Queens was brought to bed of eleven last week but one dead,’⁹⁴ he wrote to her in October, 1759. The sow in question, nicknamed ‘The Chinese Queen’, had been a gift to Bella during the summer, so the news must have delighted her. The second litter, however, were all born dead. ‘I informed you what had happened to Her Majesty the Chinese Queen,’ Richard wrote the following January to Robert Norris, who had procured him the sow, ‘and desired to know what could be done for Her to prevent the like for the future, but you are silent.’⁹⁵ Better news and a mystery followed in April. ‘I have had an uncommon increase of my family within this month past,’ he told Bella; ‘a Sow brought me Ten Piggs, six of which were Still Born, the remaining four by their Colour being mostly Black. By their form and shape we have strong suspicion to believe that His Chinese Majesty has not been so Chaste and Continent to Her Empress, who has not long to go before she will lay in, as becomes a faithful Husband. I can’t tell how John Yatton may not be to Blame in this affair, for you know he is their Guardian, and am afraid he has connived to their Love Meetings … If I conjecture right, the Emperor has by some token or other given him to understand that as he is an unmarried person he would make him a Present of One of the Princesses when fitt, and I have heard it reported of him that he is a great Lover of such Princesses, that he is for having two at a time, one not contenting him.’⁹⁶

      Richard’s new marriage brought great happiness to him and life into Sledmere with all the hustle and bustle and comings and goings that a family with children brings. These were amongst the best years of his life. His love of his house, his pride in his achievements – in his richly laden ships, his acres of land, his plantations and his gardens, his harriers and his pineapples – and his affection for his family are all self-evident. Sadly he had precious little time to enjoy them. ‘I fully intended coming over the next rent day,’ wrote Richard to John Rhodes, one of his tenants, on 9 January, 1761, ‘had it pleased God to have kept me well and free from Gout, but I have been confined to my Chamber since the 27th of last month with a very Severe fitt.’⁹⁷ Yet in spite of the fact that he was suffering so much, and having constantly to surrender to Dr Chambers’s never-ending battery of remedies, he could not put aside his fondness for the bottle. Only four days later he wrote to his brother Joseph, ‘I thank you for your tender for some Butts of mountain wine at £23. 10s. I expect I have so much old Mountain left as will last my time or longer.’⁹⁸ Prophetic words. On 19 January, he told ‘Brother Parson’ ‘I would flatter myself that this fit of the Gout is almost gone, but has