"Nov. 16.—And since I wrote last, the great, the most unutterable desolation, so long looked for, so often warded off, has come upon me. Oh! while they can still be attained, let me gather up the precious fragments that remain.
"On Thursday the 10th my darling was much better, though her mind was a little feeble. I felt then, as I feel a thousand times now, how extraordinary people were who spoke of the trial my darling's mental feebleness would be to me. It only endeared her to me a thousandfold—her gentle confidence, her sweet clinging to me to supply the words and ideas which no longer came unsought, made her only more unspeakably lovable. On that day I remember that my darling mentioned several times that she heard beautiful music. This made no impression on me then.
"Friday the 11th, I sat, as usual, all morning in her room correcting my book. I forget whether it was that morning or the next that my darling on waking from sleep said that she had had such a pleasant dream of her childhood and Adderley and 'old Lady Corbet,' who first taught her to 'love what was beautiful.'[427] At 2 P.M. Mother was up, and sat in her arm-chair by the fire. She was partly dressed, and wore her pretty old-fashioned cap with the strings tied in a bow on the top of the head, and a little red cloak which Miss Wright had given her: I remember thinking she looked so pretty, and telling her so. I was out at first, while she wrote a little letter to Fanny Tatton,[428] and talked to Lea about the texts she had been reading. At four, she had her tea, and then I sat at her feet, and my darling talked most sweetly about all the places she had admired most in her life—of Llangollen in her childhood, and of Capel Curig, of her visit to Rhianva, and of many places abroad, Narni with its woods and river, and more especially Villar in the Vaudois, of which I had been making a drawing, which she had desired to have set up that she might look at it. Then she asked to have one of her old journals read, and I read one of Rome, and she spoke of how much happiness, how many blessings, she had connected with Rome also, though much of suffering. She was especially bright and sunny. I remember saying to her playfully, 'Take a little notice of me, darling; you do not take enough notice of me,' and her stroking my head and saying, 'You dear child,' and laughing.
"At six o'clock my sweetest one was put to bed.
"Afterwards I read to her a chapter in St. Luke—'Let this cup pass from me,' &c., and sat in her room till half-past nine. When I went downstairs I kissed her and said, 'Have a good good night, darling.' I cannot recollect that she spoke, but I remember looking back as I opened the door, and seeing my sweet Mother lying on her side as she always did, and her dear eyes following me with a more than usually tender expression as I left the room.
"I have often thought since of a sentence in Carlyle's 'Life of Sterling'—'Softly, as a common evening, the last of our evenings passed away, and no other would come to me for evermore.'
"When I went upstairs again at half-past ten, I went, as I always did, to listen at her door, and, hearing a noise, went in. Terrible illness had come on and continued for hours.... The next thirty-six hours I never left her for an instant, and they all seem to me like one long terrible night. I remember very little distinctly, but at eight on Saturday morning she was certainly much better. The doctor came at ten, and she was able to speak to him. He looked very grave over the lowness of her pulse, but she continued better for some hours, and slept a great deal in the afternoon. Towards evening I thought her not so well, though the doctor, who came at half-past nine, considered her state much less anxious. I was then possessed with the feeling that our parting was very near. Lea also called me downstairs to hear the extraordinary sound that was going on. It was indeed strange. It was as if hundreds of thousands of crickets were all chirping together. They appeared everywhere in swarms on the hearths downstairs. The noise was so great that I felt if it continued we should be driven out of the place: it was quite deafening; but they only came that night, they never were heard before, and the next day they had totally disappeared.[429] I persuaded Lea to lie down on her bed, where she soon fell asleep. All through the night I sat by my darling on the pillow. I think the last thing she said was that the other arm, the well arm, pained her very much, and we feared paralysis, but more pressing symptoms diverted attention. At half-past one I called Lea again. I shall never know in this world whether my Mother was really conscious, if she even knew anything either of her own great physical suffering, or of what passed that night. I believe God helped me to say and do all she would have wished. Each hour I was more sure of what was coming. Towards dawn, kneeling on the bed, I said some of the short prayers in the Visitation of the Sick, but she was then fading rapidly, and at last I repeated the hymn 'How bright those glorious spirits shine,' which we had always agreed was never to be used except as the solemn sign that our parting was surely come. I am not sure if my darling knew that she was dying before: I am sure, if she could still hear, that she knew it then. I am sure that she was conscious at the end and that she speechlessly took leave of us. Her expression was calm and serene, but very grave, as if she realised for the first time that I might not travel with her into the solitude she was entering. It was about a quarter of an hour before the end that all suffering ceased, her paralysed side seemed to become quite well; the lame hand, which had been so tightly clenched since the 13th of March, unfolded then upon the 13th of November, and gently met the other in prayer. The eyes were closing, but opened once more—as a look—a look of youth and radiance, stole over the beloved features at the last, when there was no struggle, only just a gentle sigh or two. Lea, who was leaning over the bed on the other side, held her spectacles to the mouth. There was no breath. I could scarcely believe that she was gone. I still held her in my arms. But oh! in my unutterable desolation I could give God thanks that the end was like this. The first stroke of the church-bell sounded as she passed into the real life.
"When the sweet eyes closed and the dear face lost its last shadow of colour, I kissed my own Mother for the last time and came away. The first snowflakes of winter were falling then. They do not signify now: no snow or cold can ever signify any more.
"But oh! the agony, the anguish!
"And since then her precious earthly form has been lying, with her hands folded on her breast as if she were praying—the dear lame hand quite well now. The room is draped with white and filled with flowers. Two large white camellias stand at the head of the bed and overshadow her pillow, and on the table, draped with white, are her own particular objects, her bronze wolf, her little gold tray with her spectacles, smelling-bottle, &c., and all her special hymn-books. At first when I went in, in my great agony, I did not draw down the sheet. But now I draw it down and look at my dearest one. There is a look of unearthly serene repose upon the worn features, which is almost too beautiful.