Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/45

LADY CAROLINE LAMB thing for her to do was to occupy herself with her husband and child.

All sorts of stories about her eccentricities got about. It was said that she beat a maid and turned her out of doors without clothes in the night, and tried to murder her page. The latter report she explains herself:

"One day I was playing ball with him; he threw a squib into the fire. I threw the ball at his head; it hit him on the temple, and he bled. He cried out, 'Oh, my lady, you have killed me I' Out of my senses, I rushed into the hall and screamed, 'O God, I have murdered the page!' The servants and people in the street caught the sound, and it was soon spread about."

William Lamb saw that this sort of thing could not go on, and his family, who realised the harm it was doing to his career, insisted on a separation. While the instruments were being drawn up. Lady Caroline wrote her novel Glenarvon. Here is her own account of the proceeding:

"In one month I wrote and sent Glenarvon to the press. It was written at night, without the knowledge of any one but a governess. Miss Walsh. I sent for a copyist, and when he came she pointed to me seated at a table and dressed 19