The next day brought the long expected letter from my mother; and its contents made all that I had yet endured light, in comparison; for they alarmed me for the life of my child! She was, however, declared out of danger for the present, when my mother wrote.
It is almost needless to add, that as soon as horses could be procured, Pendarves and I were on the road home.
I must pass rapidly over this part of my narrative. Suffice, that she vacillated between life and death for three months; that then she was better, and my husband left me to join Lord Charles at Tunbridge Wells, whither he had been ordered for his health; that he had not been gone a fortnight, when her worst symptoms returned, and my mother wrote to him as follows:
"Come instantly, if you wish to see your child alive, and preserve the senses of your wife! When all is over, your presence alone can, I believe, save her from distraction.
J. P."
He instantly set off for home, and arrived at a moment when I could be alive to the joy of seeing him; for my child had just been pronounced better! But what a betterness! For six weeks longer, watched by us all day and all night with never-failing love, it lingered on and on, endeared to us every day the more, in proportion as it became more helpless, and we more void of hope, till I was doomed to see its last faint breath expire, and——no more on this subject—
I believe my mother was right; I believe that, dearly as I loved her, her presence alone would not have kept my grief within the bounds of reason: but the presence of him whose grief was on a par with mine, of him whom love and duty equally bade me exert myself to console, had indeed a salutary effect on me; and it at length became a source of comfort to reflect, that the object of our united regrets was mercifully removed from a state of severe suffering, and probably from evils to come. But my progress towards recovered tranquillity bore no proportion to Seymour's; for, when I was capable of reflection, I felt that in losing my child I lost one of my strongest holds on the affection of my husband. Consequently, the clearer my mind grew after the clouds of grief dispersed, the more vividly was I sensible of my loss.
I also became conscious that the habitual dejection of my spirits, which was pleasing to Seymour's feelings while his continued in unison with mine, would become distasteful, and make his home disagreeable, as soon as he was recovering his usual cheerfulness. Still, I could not shake it off—and by my mother's advice I urged him to renew his visit to Lord Charles, who was still an invalid.
To Tunbridge Wells he therefore again went, leaving me to indulge unrestrained that pernicious grief which even his presence had not controuled, and also to impair both my health and my person in a degree which it might be difficult ever to restore.
When Pendarves returned, which he did at the end of six weeks, during which time he had written in raptures of the new acquaintances which he had formed at the Wells, he was filled with pain and mortification at sight of my pale cheek, meagre form, and neglected dress.