A Lady of England 3
wrote to say that the deed was done.
Officious aunts do exist in the world; but surely few so officious as
this. The deepest displeasure was felt and shown when Henry’s father
learned what had happened. But by the time that his grieved remonstrances
reached the boy, Henry was fifteen thousand miles away, ‘hunting wild
animals on the plains of Behar.’ In the present day a boy so despatched
might be sent back again; but in those days India was separated from
England by a vast gulf of distance and of time. Any one writing from
India to England could not look for a reply in less than a year; and
his father was at Bermuda, not even at home, which made a further
complication.
The boy’s condition must at first have been forlorn enough. After a
petted and luxurious boyhood, he had to live for months together upon
salt junk; and his bed was only a hencoop. But there was ‘stuff’ in
him, and hardships of all kinds were most pluckily endured. On landing
at Calcutta he found himself in a strange country, among strange faces,
without money and without work, though happily not quite without friends.
His mother’s brother, Mr. Bruere, was one of the Government Secretaries
in Calcutta; and in the house of Mr. Bruere and of Mr. Bruere’s pretty
little sylph-like wife the young adventurer found shelter for some
months, until an opening could be secured for him.
Fifteen years followed of a hard and continuous struggle. As long after
he said of himself, he ‘looked the world in the face’ in those days;
and while a mere boy of fifteen or sixteen he set himself resolutely to
get on. From the first he grappled with the Native languages, showing a
vigour and persistency in the study which, many many years later, were
visible again in his daughter Charlotte, when grappling with the very
same task. Only he was young; and she, when she followed his example, was
well on in middle life.
Towards the end of those fifteen years resolution and untiring energy
triumphed; and from the age of about thirty Mr. Tucker’s rise to a good
position was steady.
In 1792 he became a member of the Bengal Civil Service. In 1809 he was
made Secretary in the Public Department. But he had had heavy work and
many troubles, and his health began to fail; so the following year,
after a quarter of a century of unbroken exile, he set off for England,
carrying with him Government testimonials, couched in the warmest terms.
These testimonials spoke of his ‘long and meritorious services,’ of his
‘peculiar abilities,’ of his ‘talents and acquirements of the highest
order,’ of his ‘unwearied diligence,’ of his ‘unimpeached integrity.’ All
this, of one who, twenty-five years before, had landed on Indian shores
an almost penniless adventurer, without so much as a definite plan of
what to do with himself and his energies!
That very year he was engaged, and the year after he was married, to Jane
Boswell, daughter of a Mr. Robert Boswell of Edinburgh, who was related
to the well-known biographer of Dr. Johnson. The Boswell family was known
to have first settled in Berwickshire as far back as in the days of
William Rufus, and afterwards in Fifeshire and Ayrshire at Balmute and
Auchinleck. Mr. Robert Boswell’s grandmother, Lady Elisabeth Bruce, was
a daughter of the first Earl of Kincardine. Mr. Boswell was a devotedly
good and also an able man; a minister, not in the Scottish Presbyterian
Church, but in some smaller religious body; and his death took place in a
somewhat tragic manner, before the date of his daughter’s marriage to Mr.
Tucker. While preaching, he quoted the text which begins, ‘All flesh is
as grass----,’ and as he uttered the words he fell back, dead!
A characteristic anecdote is told of his wife,--A. L. O. E.’s
grandmother. She had a large family, and was badly off. One day a poor
woman applied to her for help; and Mrs. Boswell called out to her
daughter Jane, to know what money they happened to have in hand. ‘Only
one seven-shilling piece,’ was the answer. Mrs. Boswell’s voice sounded
distinctly,--‘Give it, then; give it to the woman.’ ‘But, dear mamma,
there is no more money in the house,’ remonstrated Jane. More decisively
still came the response, ‘Give it, then; give it to the woman.’ And given
it was. The story almost inevitably recalls that of the Widow’s Mite;
even though from certain points of view one is dubious as to the wisdom
of the act.
Despite the poverty of the family Mrs. Boswell’s daughters settled well
in life. One married Mr. Egerton of the High Court in Calcutta; one
married Dr. Roxburgh; one married General Carnegie; one married Mr.
Anderson; one only, Veronica by name, remained unmarried; and Jane became
the wife of Henry St. George Tucker. She was at that time a gentle and
beautiful girl of about twenty-one, while Mr. Tucker was already over
forty.
Early in the following year, 1812, they went out to India together; and
his delight was great in returning to the country where he had toiled so
long, and had made many friends. This time, however, his stay in the east
was to be brief.
His first child, Henry Carre, was born that same year; and two years
later came his eldest daughter, Sibella Jane. Also in 1814 fell the
blow of his Mother’s death, over which, strong man that he was, he wept
passionately. Then his wife’s health seemed to be seriously failing;
and this decided him to leave the land of his adoption, throwing up all
prospects in that direction. In 1815, the first year of European peace,
at the age of forty-five, he ‘retired from the active service of the
Company,’ travelling by long sea with his invalid wife and his two little
ones, and spending some time at the Cape by the way. Before they arrived
in England another little one, Frances Anne, had been added to their
number.
A home was found in Charlotte Square, Edinburgh; and for some years,
till 1819 or 1820, he was well content to remain there, living a quiet
home-life, with a little family growing around him. Two more boys came,
George William and Robert Tudor,--the former dying in babyhood, the
latter growing up to be slain in the Indian Mutiny. Losing the infant
George was a dire trouble to his parents; and Mrs. Tucker, believing that
he had succumbed to the keen cold of Edinburgh, was never at rest in her
mind until the northern home had been exchanged for one in the south.
Such a change was not to be accomplished in a day, but in the course of
time it came about; and meanwhile the remaining children were a constant
source of interest and delight. The ‘baby’ at this date was Robert;
afterwards a very favourite elder brother of A. L. O. E. His children,
known in the family by the name of ‘The Robins,’ became in later years as
her own.
Mr. Tucker could not long remain contented without definite work. He
was still in the prime of life, still under fifty; and an eager desire
took hold of him to enter public life once more, to serve again his own
country, as well as the eastern land of his adoption. These purposes
he thought might best be carried out by his becoming, if possible, one
of the Directors of the East India Company. For the fulfilment of his
desire--a desire, not for gain or wealth or position, but for the means
of doing good--he had to wait a considerable time. He had indeed to wait
until his next little daughter, CHARLOTTE MARIA, was five years old.
Then, at length, he was appointed Director; one of the Twenty-four who,
in those days, practically ruled India. Thereafter his influence was
steadfastly exerted in the direction of a wise and righteous government
of the dark millions of Hindustan; the land in which he had spent a
quarter of a century of his life, and to which afterward not only all his
five sons went, but one of his five daughters also, in the advanced years
of her life.
While he waited for this long-desired appointment, other changes took
place. They left their home in Edinburgh and moved south, first spending
some months at Friern Hatch, in Barnet, near Finchley; and there it was
that little Charlotte first saw the light of day. In 1822 they went to
live in London, settling into No. 3 Upper Portland Place, whence no
further move was made until after the death of Mrs. Tucker, more than
forty-five years later.
In Portland Place the family was completed. Two years after the birth of
Charlotte came her next brother, St. George; two years later still her
next sister, Dorothea Laura, her peculiar companion and friend. The three
youngest, William, Charlton, and Clara, finished the tale of ten living
children.
Mr. Tucker was, as may have been already gathered, a man of unusual force
of character and of indomitable will; robust in body and mind; unwearying
in work; self-reliant, yet never presumptuous; an absolute gentleman,
remarkable for the polished courtesy of his bearing, alike to superiors,
equals, and inferiors in social position; open and straightforward as
daylight; firm in his own convictions, but well able to look on both
sides of a question, and liberal towards those who differed from him;
entirely fearless in doing what he held to be right, and entirely
free from all thought of self-seeking. He was, as his Biographer Mr.
Kaye observes,--‘pre-eminently a man amongst men,’--‘a statesman at
eighteen, and a statesman at eighty.’ He was also a man of deep and true
religion; a religion not much expressed in words, but apparent in every
inch of his career. In a letter written long after his death by his
daughter Charlotte, she remarked, when speaking of the biography of some
well-known man: ‘There is nothing to indicate that he ever said, as our
beloved Father said, “The publican’s prayer is the prayer of us all!”’
Probably religious speech never came easily to him. His life, however,
spoke more eloquently than mere words could have done.
One of his main characteristics was an abounding generosity. He was
always ready to help those who needed help, up to his power, and beyond
his power. In his own home he was charming; full of wit, full of fun,
full of gay spirits and laughter; full also of the tenderest affection
for his wife and children, an affection which was abundantly returned.
He was an intensely loving and lovable man; his wonderful sweetness and
evenness of temper, never disturbed by heavy work or pressing cares,
endearing him to all with whom he came in contact. While he talked little
of his own feelings, he did much for the good of others; and his life
was one long stretch of usefulness. The union in him of strength with
gentleness, of a masterful intellect with a spirit of yielding courtesy,
of nobility with playfulness, of generosity with self-restraint, of real
religious conviction and experience with frolicsome gaiety, made a
combination not more rare than beautiful.
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