Frances Mary Buss and her work for education

by Annie E. Ridley

“No one pets me but you, and occasionally Mrs. Bryant. Darling boy allows me graciously to pet him, but he does not make advances to me.

“I want you sometimes, if only to look at!

“Where are we to go at Easter? I was thinking of Hastings. Let me know.

“Your very loving old

“Arnie.”

It is not necessary to say that no change really took place in Miss Buss’ endeavours to respond to even the most unreasonable of demands. When she met me at Ben Rhydding soon afterwards, she was just as sweet and bright as ever, and her nerves rapidly recovered tone again. This power of recuperation after even the severest strain was always remarkable, even to the very last. We had a striking proof of it in the spring of 1893, when Miss Buss joined my sister and me at Bordighera. We had tried to get her to take the complete rest of a whole winter abroad after her illness in the autumn before, holding out the attractions of Florence, Siena, and the Italian lakes. Every one wanted her to give up work for a time, and take the chance of real recovery. Our efforts were all wasted, and all she would do was to come, with her cousin, Miss Mary Buss, and a friend, late in the spring, stopping at various points in the Riviera on the way. She was far from well on her arrival, but a drive to San Remo in an open carriage on a windy day gave her a chill, followed by the inevitable attack of influenza. There was also a passing giddiness which gave us anxiety. She was certainly very ill for five days, with a threatening of pneumonia. But, thanks to her power of sleeping day and night, the attack passed off as rapidly as it had come on, when nothing we could say could persuade her that there had been ground for alarm; an opinion she maintained in the face of the most authoritative medical support of our view. On the Sunday she had certainly been very ill, but on Tuesday she would have been downstairs if we had not made too strong a protest. On Thursday, however, she insisted on starting for England, and accomplished the journey to London without a break, and apparently with no ill consequences.

She had already suffered from frequent attacks of influenza of a more or less serious character, leaving behind them more and more weakness. The first attack dated from the winter of 1889–90, when we were all in Rome together. I had suffered from what seemed a sudden sharp cold, but was nearly well when Miss Buss and her party arrived in Rome on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day was very wet, and as my room was large and airy all assembled there for afternoon tea and talk, Miss Buss being full of fun and interest. But after a few days she and several others developed the same kind of cold, which, even then, we never identified with the mysterious disease of which every one heard so much that year. But for us both it proved the beginning of a series of attacks extending through the next four years. More than once when she was at the worst, I was too ill even to be told of it till the danger had passed. This was the case in the autumn of 1893, and I had been suffering during the summer, and able to see her only when she came to visit me.

It was during this summer that she finally moved from Myra Lodge to No. 87, next door, leaving the boarders with Miss Edwards. The door of communication was still left, that Miss Buss might see her friends and the girls when she felt able. She had her own companion, Miss Newman, and, later, Miss Millner; but Miss Edwards, having been so many years with her, still went often to see her. There seemed every prospect of years of rest and ease, amid a circle which could profit by her experience and wisdom.

There were all the inevitable delays, in getting into the new house, even though the workmen worked with all their hearts for an employer who took very special care of their creature comforts, and made them wish “for more like her.” She was not accustomed to summer in London, and the consequence of it all was the very serious attack, already mentioned, in the autumn. She recovered, however, with something of the rapidity of the experience in the spring, and was able to go to Bournemouth, and afterwards to spend Christmas at her cottage at Epping.

When my sister and I returned from Italy, in May, 1894, we were very much grieved to see the change in our friend. She looked many years older, and was quite unfit for any sort of exertion. It was surprising how easily she accepted the changed conditions, and, after her life of so much activity, was quite content to be amused, finding special pleasure in Miss Millner’s lovely little Persian kitten. It was very touching to see her intense amusement in her subjection to her new medical attendant, Dr. Cobbett, the successor to her old friend Dr. Evershed. She even seemed to find a lively satisfaction in the discovery of a will which could dominate her own.