Kew, Monday, Dec. 1.—Mournful was the opening of the month! My account of the night from Gezewell, the page, was very alarming, and my poor royal mistress began to sink more than I had ever yet seen. No wonder; the length of the malady so uncertain, the steps which seemed now requisite so shocking: for new advice, and such as suited only disorders that physicians in general relinquish, was now proposed, and compliance or refusal were almost equally tremendous.
In sadness I returned from her, and, moping and unoccupied, I was walking up and down my room, when Columb came to say Mr. Fairly desired to know if I could see him.
Certainly, I said, I would come to him in the parlour. He was not at all well, nor did he seem at all comfortable. He had undertaken, by his own desire, to purchase small carpets for the princesses, for the house is in a state of cold and discomfort past all imagination. It has never been a winter residence, and there was nothing prepared for its becoming one. He could not, he told me, look at the rooms of their royal highnesses without shuddering for them; and he longed, he said, to cover all the naked, cold boards, to render them more habitable. He had obtained permission to execute this as a commission: for so miserable is the house at present that no general orders to the proper people are either given Or thought about; and every one is so absorbed in the general calamity, that they would individually sooner perish than offer up complaint or petition. I Should never end were I to explain the reasons there are for both.
What he must next, he said, effect, was supplying them with sand-bags for windows and doors, which he intended to fill and to place himself. The wind which blew in upon those lovely princesses, he declared, was enough to destroy them.
When he had informed me of these kind offices, he began an inquiry into how I was lodged. Well enough, I said; but he would not accept so general an answer. He insisted upon knowing what was my furniture, and in particular if I had any carpet; and when I owned I had none, he smiled, and said he would bring six, though his commission only extended to three.
He did not at all like the parlour, which, indeed, is wretchedly cold and miserable: he wished to bring it a carpet, and new fit it up with warm winter accommodations. He reminded me of my dearest Fredy, when she brought me a decanter of barley-water and a bright tin saucepan, under her hoop. I Could not tell him that history in detail, but I rewarded his good-nature by hinting at the resemblance it bore, in its active zeal, to my sweet Mrs. Locke....
The queen afterwards presented me with a very pretty little new carpet; only a bed-side slip, but very warm. She knew not how much I was acquainted with its history, but I found she had settled for them all six. She gave another to Mrs. Schwellenberg.