THE KEEPER OF THE ROBES’ CONSTERNATION.
Mrs. Schwellenberg took the memorial, and promised me her services, but desired to know its contents. I begged vainly to be excused speaking them. She persisted, and I then was compelled to own they contained my resignation.
How aghast she looked!—how inflamed with wrath!—how petrified with astonishment! It was truly a dreadful moment to me. She expostulated on such a step, as if it led to destruction, she offered to save me from it, as if the peace of my life depended on averting it and she menaced me with its bad consequences, as it life itself, removed from these walls, would become an evil.
I plainly recapitulated the suffering state in which I had lived for the last three months; the difficulty with which I had waded through even the most common fatigues of the day; the constraint of attendance, however honourable, to an invalid; and the impracticability of pursuing such a life, when thus enfeebled, with the smallest chance of ever recovering the health and strength which it had demolished.
To all this she began a vehement eulogium on the superior happiness and blessing of my lot, while under such a protection; and angrily exhorted me not to forfeit what I could never regain.
I then frankly begged her to forbear SO painful a discussion, and told her that the memorial was from my father as well as myself—that I had no right or authority to hesitate in delivering it—that the queen herself was prepared to expect it—and that I had promised my father not to go again to Windsor till it was presented. I entreated her, therefore, to have the goodness to show it at once.
This was unanswerable, and she left me with the paper in her hand, slowly conveying it to its place of destination.
Just as she was gone, I was called to Dr. Gisburne or, rather, without being called, I found him in my room, as I returned to it.
Think if my mind, now, wanted not medicine the most I told him, however, my corporeal complaints and he ordered me opium and three glasses of wine in the day, and recommended rest to me, and an application to retire to my friends for some weeks, as freedom from anxiety was as necessary to my restoration as freedom from attendance.