Punch, 29th December 1866.
In August 1867 Bessie paid her first visit to the Vicar of Heversham. She writes a "frame" letter from the North to Mrs. Elliot, and sends warm appreciation of her work in the house, and of the "little three-cornered things in the pink room." The "nice woman" was probably a certain Jane Todd, formerly a servant, but at that time settled in a home of her own. Quite an extraordinary friendship sprang up between her and Bessie, and to the end of her life Jane Todd daily offered up special prayers on behalf of her friend the blind lady.
There are again ominous allusions to her difficulty in walking. "I walk better here," she says; and again, "I can't tell you how much I enjoy moving more freely."
Heversham, Milnthorpe, 23d August 1867.
My dear K.—I meant my first frame letter from here to be to you, so now I am beginning it. I have the morning room which you used to have, and enjoy it very much. How nice the house is, and how you must have worked to make it so. Mrs. Argles and Mrs. Braithwaite seem very much impressed with all your hard work. Is it true that those little three-cornered things in the pink room with the china on them were washhand stands? You have made a capital use of them.... I walked up the lower Head yesterday, then stayed there and had some tea brought me, and afterwards walked to the school through all those stiles. After the meeting we came back by the road. I have been able to walk better here, and it is such a pleasure. I can't tell you how much I enjoy moving more freely. Wednesday I walked as far as the house at Levens and back after a rest at a cottage near, where we found a very nice woman who certainly talked Westmoreland, but really with a pretty accent.... Your loving sister,
Bessie.
The difficulty in walking, to which she alludes, had again increased; and in 1867 or 1868 she consulted Sir James Paget with regard to it. He thought it proceeded from weak ankles and general debility, and prescribed rest and care.
She was at Queen Anne Street in February 1868, and much interested in a public dinner at Chichester at which her father was to be present Dean Hook wrote to give her an account of the proceedings.
The Deanery, Chichester, 5th February 1868.
My dear Miss Gilbert—I cannot help writing to tell you that the dear good Bishop was yesterday more animated and more eloquent than I ever heard him. He seemed so well and so happy that I am glad he went. It was indeed an ovation to his lordship, as much as to the Mayor; he was so enthusiastically received. As I knew that you were anxious about him, under the notion that he was doing too much, I trouble you with this note. The calm serenity with which he always does his duty, and in performing it does his best, is a very beautiful trait in his character, and I doubt not now that he will get through his visitation duties without suffering too much from fatigue. It is not work, it is worry which tries a man, and all his clergy will exert themselves to save him from worries.—Believe me to be, your affectionate friend,
W. F. Hook.
Bessie's own work at this time was mainly the preparation for the annual meeting in May, together with appeals for custom to the secretaries of public institutions.
The Lady Superintendent of the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street replies that brushes for the Hospital are always purchased at the depot in Euston Road.
The Secretary of the Islington Shoe Black Brigade tells her that so far as he can, consistently with the interests of his Society, and as regards the price charged for various articles, he has always given the Society for the Blind as much custom as possible. These are types of innumerable answers; and she went on with this drudgery year after year; every ignoble detail of it glorified by the constant presence of the aim for which she worked. The sufferings of the blind poor were always borne in her heart; the hope of alleviating them was the mainspring of all her actions. Letters, accounts, appeals, petitions, these are all the machinery with which she works. She has learnt the proportion of result to be expected, and is seldom disappointed or disheartened by indifference or coldness. But encouragement and approval from those whom she honours is very helpful to her.