| Chapter 1: | The Early Years |
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This reference was probably to Lord Thomas Cochrane. It is a fact that she was deeply involved in his affairs, even after they had stopped seeing each other.11 Maria Graham never had close women friends, and even if she had, it is unlikely that one such relationship would have provoked jealousy and animosity towards her ‘for several following years’, or given her cause ‘to repent or blush’. It is interesting that at the end of her life she felt the need to proclaim her innocence in this matter, and more remarkable still is her admission that the situation caused her pain. This admission humanises her narrating persona and adds a new dimension to the aloof figure she built through the years.
Maria gives a happy closure to her story of the cottage children who end up well cared for by their father and under the supervision of the school. Her own story is richer and sadder. After her school moved from Drayton to Buckland, she was able to visit Oxford on several occasions. With Jack Ireland, apothecary and botanist and the father of a schoolfellow, she visited ‘the Physic Garden in Oxford, where I began to comprehend the use of classification and arrangement’ (52). Maria relates that at first, it was the beauty of the city of Oxford that attracted her, but afterwards, she ‘soon learnt to love books so, that, if I could but get into a College library, with permission to handle the books, neither the High Street nor the meadow, nor even Addison’s Walk had any charms for me’ (ibid.).
During the holidays she sometimes went to her uncle’s house in Richmond where, after the first week of recriminations had passed, she was able to participate in the amusements and social life of the place. There was a small theatre in Richmond where she acquired a love for plays both English and French, and where she had the opportunity of seeing famous players like John Quick or Mrs Jordan.