Tom Trollope's Mother-in-Law (original) (raw)

Miss Abrams (who possessed a voice which, though not so powerful as some of her contemporaries, was sweet and of good quality, and sung with great taste and expression,) maintained a very respetable station at the London concerts for a considerable time, and, with her two younger sisters, Theodosia and Eliza, for several years delighted the audience at the Ladies' Catch and Glee Concerts, and at numerous private parties in the first circles of fashion, with the sweet harmony which proceeded from three voices constantly in the habit of singing together, and uncommonly well blended. Theodosia, the second sister, now the widow of Capt. Fisher, of the Devonshire Militia, had a peculiarly deep contra alto voice, which had an admirable effect in the under parts. Mis Abrams was the composer of several beautiful glees, &c. and very popular ballads, some of which, particularly those of the Orphan's Prayer, and Crazy Jane, were sung with most impressive effect by her sister Theodosia. These ladies, having invariably possessed the admiration and esteem of the public, have been some years retired, to enjoy the well earned emoluments of their profession.

It is evident from the wills of Harriett and Eliza Abrams that the 'well earned emoluments' had been invested in property or in public funds.

Harriett Abrams was a successful composer of songs, duets and trios, published individually and in four collections, the last of which was dedicated to Queen Charlotte, 'with Her Majesty's most Gracious Permission', in 1803. The dedication page gives Harriett's address as Park Lane. There is no contemporary scandalous gossip about the sisters and little information about their private lives. We know that they were friends of the leading actor, John Philip Kemble, for his memorandum book records that in April 1799 he, his actor brother Charles and Mr Siddons, husband of their sister Sarah, the great actress, spent the evening and supped with the Miss Abramses. Harriett, Jane, Theodosia, Eliza, Charles and another Abrams brother were all present. On Sunday 16 June the Earl and Countess of Mount- Edgecumbe, Mr and Mrs Siddons, Charles Kemble and the Miss Abramses were among Kemble's supper guests. He was in Margate that August to play leading roles at the theatre for a couple of weeks and the day before his first night there he travelled over to Broadstairs to dine with the Miss Abramses, who were presumably taking a seaside holiday.

By 1894 the sisters were spending at least part of the year in Devon, and on 6 August Theodosia married the 21-year-ol Thomas Fisher at St Maurice, Plympton. He came from Little Torrington, in North Devon, where his father had been rector for 30 years until his death in 1803. The Abrams sisters remained on friendly terms with Thomas Fisher's widowed mother and six unmarried sisters, who were left small bequests in the wills of both Harriett and Eliza Abrams. Fisher's death at Teignmouth was reported in the Gentleman's Magazine of June 1810, where he was described as 'late captain and adjutant in the North Devon militia'. After less than 6 years of marriage, Theodosia became a widow with a 3-year-old son, Charles, and a 6-month-old daughter, Harriett.

The Abrams sisters continued to live mainly in Devon, since Theodosia's home was in Torquay when she married Joseph Garrow. But they had not abandoned London completely, for Jane Adams was 'of Park Lane . . . but also of Teignmouth' when she died in 1814. Garrow could have encountered them socially, or he could have been taking violin lessons from one of their brothers. Harriett and Eliza Abrams were to live with the Garrows until their deaths. Harriett's will, made in 1819, two years before she died, praises her 'dearly dearly beloved Brother in Law Joseph Garrow', whose 'parental attention [and] affection towards his Son and Daughter in Law Charles & Harriett Fisher were sufficient to ensure him my utmost gratitude and love. Added to his his affection for his wife myself and every part of my Family has indeared him to me as a Brother and Friend'. The family became closely involved in the music of St. John's Chapel, a few minutes walk from their home. In the late 1830s Joseph Garrow's Sacred Music, selected from that usually sung in St John's Chapel, Torquay, arranged in an easy manner for four voices was printed in London and published by subscription. It was dedicated to John Sheepshanks, Arcdeacon of Cornwall, 'as a mark of friendship & esteem, and of gratitude for his kind assistance while curate of St John's Chapel, Torquay, in originally forming the choir. By his attached friend, The Author'. As well as music by Beethoven, Mozart, Weber and others, the volume includes an anthem for Christams Day and eight hymn tunes by J. Garrow and tunes or chants by Miss E. Abrams, Mrs Garrow, Miss Garrow and Miss Fisher. (Harriett Abrams had died before the choir was formed.)

By 1820, inflation was adversely affecting the household at Torquay and the three sisters sent a petition to George I, asking for an official position for Joseph Garrow. The king's response was very positive, but we do not know exactly what resulted; however; they all continued to live at The Braddons in middle-class comfort. Joseph Garrow was certainly not idle, for in addition to his duties as a magistrate, he became a member of the Select Vestry for the parish, Vice-President of the Torquay Mechanics' Institute and chairman of the Newton Abbot Board of Guardians. When gas lighting was introduced into Torquay shops in 1834 he wrote an amusing verse celebration, full of ludicrous puns on the names of the shop owners. Walter Savage Landor visited Torquay in 1837 and became a friend of the family and a correspondent of 'genial, hospitable Garrow'. The following year, the 32-year-old Elizabeth Barrett was advised by her doctor to leave London and she moved to Torquay for three years. The Garrows sent her fruit and vegetables from their garden and Harriett and the 22-year-old Theo visited the invalid. In a letter to Mary Russell Mitford, Barrett gossiped about Joseph Garrow's illegitimacy and his Indian mother, 'the "dark ladie" - To the darkness his own complexion is said to signify - but he is a sensible intelligent man & an active magistrate & useful citizen, sufficiently so to put his pedigree out of people's heads!' Of his wife she reports nothing except: 'You are aware perhaps that Mrs Garrow was a public singer'. Elizabeth's sister, Henrietta, who mixed in Torquay society, had clearly not picked up any scandal about Theodosia or Joseph Garrow, but found some disapproval of Theo, whom she thought affected and with 'a leaning to light flirty manners'. Barrett became irritated by Landor's excessive praise of Theo's poetry, which was being published in the Countess of Blessington's annuals, but admired the young woman's linguistic ability in German and Italian. She defended Theo from the charge of affectation and acknowledged her musical skill: 'She composes & performs fl & there is genius in each'. They shared the same doctor in Torquay, a man who, according to Barrett, thought writing poetry was bad for the health, particularly for ladies, and attributed Barrett's invalidism and Theo's bouts of ill-health to the practice. He forecast Theo's death in two years, but as Barrett wrote in 1845: 'she was dancing quadrilles then . . . (& has lived to do the same by the Polka)'. It was Fanny Trollope, not Mrs Garrow, whom Robert Browning described to his wife as 'that coarse, vulgar Mrs Trollope' and 'that vulgar, pushing, woman who is not fit to speak to you', when he encountered both families in Italy in 1847, soon after his marriage to Elizabeth Barrett.

Initially, Theo's parents were strongly opposed to her marriage and, according to Tom's diary, there were 'harsh letters' and then 'terrible scenes' with Garrow. However, as Theo had only �1,000 at that time and Tom had lived with his mother for many years with no steady income of his own, most 19th century parents would have reacted in the same way. Although Tom, in his autobiography What I Remember, described the opposition to the marriage as a matter of 'ordinary prudence', he never really forgave his in-laws. He became somwhat reconciled to Joseph, who lived with the Trollopes for several years after Theodosia's death, but still described him as 'a jealously affectionate, but very exacting father'. He never came to terms with Theodosia, who died within two years of his marriage, and his portrait of her lies behind all the later descriptions. He wrote: 'Mrs Garrow, my wife's mother, was not, I think, an amiable woman. She must have been between 70 and 80 when I first knew her; but she was still vigorous, and had still a pair of what must once have been magnificent, and were still brilliant and fierce black eyes. She was in no wise a clever woman . . . I am afraid that Mrs Garrow did not love her second daughter at all . . . She was a very fierce old lady, and did not, I fear, contribute to the happiness of any member of her family'.

Frances Eleanor Trollope, whom Tom married after Theo's death in 1865, wrote a hagiographic biography of Fanny Trollope, Frances Trollope, Her Life and Literary Work, published in 1895. Both Fanny Trollope and Joseph Garrow had died before her marriage to Tom, who died in 1892. Repeatedly, and perhaps unconsciously, she highlights the sympathetic behaviour of Fanny by making the Garrows as unpleasant as possible. So, Joseph's reaction to the marriage is 'simple selfishness', while Fanny's desire that Tom and Theo should live with her is admirable. Joseph Garrow becomes a man of 'very quick, though shallow, intelligence', who was 'intensely and unmitigatingly selfish', while Theodosia turns into 'a woman of coarse feeling and violent temper'.

Tom and Frances Eleanor's comments are repeated or magnified by later writers. Theodosia is described as 'not very bright', yet Tom Trollope wrote in What I Remember that the composer and pianist John Baptist Cramer (who had appeared as a soloist at Harriett's benefit concerts from 1782, when he was 11) had told him admiringly that Theodosia could pick out a wrong note on any instrument in a full orchestre. Theodosia's 'coarse feeling and violent temper', found only in F.E. Trollope, is accepted as a fact. It seems strange that a household found hospitable by Landor should have included such a harridan, and it is worth noting that she had an admirable ability to keep her servants. John Tope was with the family from at least 1819 until they left for Italy. Mary Ann Coombs was left legacies in the wills of Harriett Abrams (1819), Eliza Abrams (1831) and Harriett Fisher, who called her 'my old nurse', and she registered Theodosia Garrow's death at Torquay in November 1849.

Theodosia Garrow's life after her daughter's marriage was not a happy one. Her elder daughter died suddenly from smallpox in Florence only seven months later and she herself was in her late 70s and becoming ill. The Garrows returned to England and the local paper reported that they were back in The Braddons by 4 July 1849. Charles Fisher had joined them by the 18th and stayed until after his mother's death. Tom and Theodosia, summoned from the Continent, were in Torquay before the end of August. On 3 October, Fanny Trollope wrote to Tom asking that he and his wife should visit her 'for a few weeks' and this has led to the assumption that Theodosia died in September, since it has been assumed that Fanny would only have written in this way after Theodosia's death. In fact, Theodosia Garrow died of 'Deranged Digestion, Abscess and Exhaustion' on 4 November. Her desire for Theo's constant presence, deplored by Tom's mother, would seem to contradict the belief that she had no love for her younger daughter. After her mother's death, Theo was advised by her doctor to move to a warmer climate and it was quickly agreed that Joseph Garrow should share a house in Italy with Theo, Tom and Fanny Trollope. By 5 December The Braddons was empty.

Tom Trollope and his mother were, perhaps understandably, biased against Theodosia Garrow. However, her musical friends saw her in a different light. The Earl of Mount-Edgcumbe was an enthusiastic and discriminating lover of opera and concerts through his life. His Musical Reminiscence of an Old Amateur, first published in 1834, has a final chapter on English music and the leading English singers, which ends:

There is by one name more that I shall mention, and that very slightly, but but when excellence in music is the subject, it cannot be omitted. It is that of the Misses Abrams, who were unrivaled in their more direct line, and whose united voices formed the very perfection of harmony. But of them I shall not permit myself to speak, private friendship might make my praise appear too partial. I restrain myself with the less regret from saying what I feel, because their talents (still fresh in the remembrance of many) and their merits of every kind are too widely known to need my panegyrics, and too universally acknowledged to admit of the possibility of contradiction.

Of the three sisters one only survives, Miss Theodosia, now Mrs Garrow, whose voice was the most beautiful contralto I ever heard.