invite those ladies to Canon. I assure [you] I am not at all jealous of any of them, unless it is Mrs. Clements; who is so pretty, so young, so gentle and so unaffected that I think there is some danger of your falling in love with her. If you do, Mr. Clements shall be my lover and then I may afford to new-set my diamonds as often as I please.’ Expensively reset, the diamonds duly arrived. Emily declared them ‘charming’, and wrote to Kildare, ‘how good you are about the buckle’.
Sporadic attempts at economy punctuated this litany to the heady new world of consumption. Emily did little to curb her own habits, but every now and then she cast a weary eye over household expenditure and made minute and totally ineffectual adjustments. ‘Yesterday … I looked over the house accounts. It’s well I did for you would have been ruined in fruit cakes and tarts if I had not made a little regulation about it.’ ‘I must tell you that I have made myself quite mistress of the dairy knowledge … and have also got some hints about soap etc that will be very useful to me; for since my dear Lord K. leaves me so much at liberty to please myself about my house I am determined to show him I can save his money as well as spend it.’ But Emily could not save and she felt much more at home justifying extravagance than attempting economies. The passages at Carton dripped with water – in thewinter, she wrote, ‘which shows, my love, the necessity of having very often fires almost all over the house. We must never be sparing in the article of coals.’ So the debts mounted. Like many creditworthy aristocrats Emily schemed to juggle deficits so that they seemed to match incomes. During a ruinous visit to London in 1757 she wrote to Kildare: ‘my scheme is to pay my old bills only, and any of the trifling new ones; but it would be too much to pay all indeed. Besides the people here never worry one for money you know.’
Kildare might grumble about paying for his wife’s enslavement, to novelty, but he pandered to it by making explicit the connection he made between sex and money, writing after the coronation of George III, which Emily had attended, loaded with finery, ‘I gave … five guineas for Mrs. Ciber, for dressing you for the coronation, and would give more than I could name to have the pleasure of undressing you myself.’ Indeed Kildare did not really want the spending spree to stop and he often contributed to the mounting debts himself with presents for his wife. Stockings were his particular favourite. They reminded him of the beautiful flesh they would so enticingly cover. Kildare knew that Emily was fond of stockings that had been ‘clocked’ or elaborately embroidered with silk. She bought them in London and from there her husband wrote excitedly in 1762: ‘I find I exceed your commission in regard to your stockings with coloured clocks. I bespoke two pairs with bright blue, two pairs with green and two pairs with pink clocks … I am sure when you have them on, your dear legs will set them off. I will bespoke you six more pairs with white clocks; you mean to have them embroidered I suppose, therefore [I] shall make you a present of the dozen. The writing about your stockings and dear, pretty legs makes me feel what is not to be expressed.’ When the stockings came back from the seamstress, Kildare was excited anew. ‘I think they are very pretty and when upon your dear pretty legs will look much better – Oh! What would I give to see them. I must stop here, for if I was to let myself go on to express whatI feel by being absent, I should put my eyes out.’ But he did go on, adding in his next letter, I ‘long very much for the acknowledgment [your] dear, dear legs are to make for the trouble I have had upon their account, and make no doubt but that I shall be amply rewarded for the care I have had about them.’ After the stockings had finally arrived at Carton, Emily wrote coyly, ‘Henry [one of the little
Sporadic attempts at economy punctuated this litany to the heady new world of consumption. Emily did little to curb her own habits, but every now and then she cast a weary eye over household expenditure and made minute and totally ineffectual adjustments. ‘Yesterday … I looked over the house accounts. It’s well I did for you would have been ruined in fruit cakes and tarts if I had not made a little regulation about it.’ ‘I must tell you that I have made myself quite mistress of the dairy knowledge … and have also got some hints about soap etc that will be very useful to me; for since my dear Lord K. leaves me so much at liberty to please myself about my house I am determined to show him I can save his money as well as spend it.’ But Emily could not save and she felt much more at home justifying extravagance than attempting economies. The passages at Carton dripped with water – in thewinter, she wrote, ‘which shows, my love, the necessity of having very often fires almost all over the house. We must never be sparing in the article of coals.’ So the debts mounted. Like many creditworthy aristocrats Emily schemed to juggle deficits so that they seemed to match incomes. During a ruinous visit to London in 1757 she wrote to Kildare: ‘my scheme is to pay my old bills only, and any of the trifling new ones; but it would be too much to pay all indeed. Besides the people here never worry one for money you know.’
Kildare might grumble about paying for his wife’s enslavement, to novelty, but he pandered to it by making explicit the connection he made between sex and money, writing after the coronation of George III, which Emily had attended, loaded with finery, ‘I gave … five guineas for Mrs. Ciber, for dressing you for the coronation, and would give more than I could name to have the pleasure of undressing you myself.’ Indeed Kildare did not really want the spending spree to stop and he often contributed to the mounting debts himself with presents for his wife. Stockings were his particular favourite. They reminded him of the beautiful flesh they would so enticingly cover. Kildare knew that Emily was fond of stockings that had been ‘clocked’ or elaborately embroidered with silk. She bought them in London and from there her husband wrote excitedly in 1762: ‘I find I exceed your commission in regard to your stockings with coloured clocks. I bespoke two pairs with bright blue, two pairs with green and two pairs with pink clocks … I am sure when you have them on, your dear legs will set them off. I will bespoke you six more pairs with white clocks; you mean to have them embroidered I suppose, therefore [I] shall make you a present of the dozen. The writing about your stockings and dear, pretty legs makes me feel what is not to be expressed.’ When the stockings came back from the seamstress, Kildare was excited anew. ‘I think they are very pretty and when upon your dear pretty legs will look much better – Oh! What would I give to see them. I must stop here, for if I was to let myself go on to express whatI feel by being absent, I should put my eyes out.’ But he did go on, adding in his next letter, I ‘long very much for the acknowledgment [your] dear, dear legs are to make for the trouble I have had upon their account, and make no doubt but that I shall be amply rewarded for the care I have had about them.’ After the stockings had finally arrived at Carton, Emily wrote coyly, ‘Henry [one of the little
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