In the gloom of the sick chamber, to which by the infirmities of old age she was frequently confined, the unbroken spirit of the Duchess showed itself still. “Old Marlborough is dying,” writes Horace Walpole to his friend Sir Horace Mann; “but who can tell? Last year she had lain a great while ill, without speaking; her physicians said she must be blistered, or she would die; she called out, ‘I won’t be blistered, and I won’t die.’ If she takes the same resolution now, I don’t believe she will.”[[398]]
This passage forms a melancholy sequel to hints of infirmities, and reflections on approaching death, contained in the Duchess’s Opinions. As on this subject the least reserved of our species are seldom disposed to converse, since the stranger knoweth not the heart, and “intermeddleth not” with its joys or sorrows, we may receive, as her genuine sentiments, the plaintive reflections of the feeble and declining Duchess, couched in such terms as these.
“It is impossible,” she writes in 1737, “that one of my age and infirmities can live long; and one great happiness there is in death, that one shall never hear more of anything they do in this world.”
In another passage, she expresses herself so weary of life, that “she cared not how soon the stroke was given, and wished only that it might be given with as little pain as possible.”
Her grace’s amusements became yearly more and more circumscribed. In former years she had occupied her shrewd and masculine mind with purchases of land, which she bought in the firm belief, or at least with the excuse of belief to her own mind, that a “sponge” might do away with all the funded property, and that land would “hold longest.” It appears from her will that she was incessantly making additions to the immense landed property in which she possessed a life interest, and even went to the city herself, when nearly eighty years of age, to bid for Lord Yarmouth’s estate. Her quarrels with Sir Robert Walpole began, as we have seen, upon the subject of “trust-money,” and they seem to have hinged upon that same matter even so late as the year 1737.[[399]]
As the darkened day drew to its close, the poor Duchess was fain to be contented to amuse herself by writing in bed, in which shackled position much of her “Vindication” was penned by her.[[400]] She frequently spoke six hours a day, in giving directions to Hooke. Then she had recourse to a chamber-organ, the eight tunes of which she was obliged to think much better than going to an Italian opera, or an assembly.[[401]] Society seems to have afforded her little pleasure. Like most disappointed and discontented persons, she became attached to animals, especially to her three dogs, who had those virtues in which human beings, in her estimation, were so greatly deficient. Satiated with the world, the Duchess found, in the numerous visitants to Marlborough-house, few that were capable of friendship. Hers was not a mind to cull sweetness from the flowers which spring up amid the thorns of our destiny. She knew no enjoyment, she declared, equal to that accompanying a strong partiality to a certain individual, with the power of seeing the beloved object frequently; but she now found the generality of the world too disagreeable to feel any partiality strong enough to endear life to the decrepit being that she describes herself to have become.
The Duchess, during the latter years of her life, changed her residence frequently. Sometimes she remained at Marlborough-house, but exchanged that central situation for the quiet of Windsor-lodge or of Wimbledon. Yet at Windsor-lodge she was tantalised with a view of gardens and parks which she could not enjoy; and Wimbledon, she discovered, after having laid out a vast sum of money on it, was damp, clayey, and, consequently, unhealthy.[[402]] Wrapped up in flannels, and carried about like a child, or wheeled up and down her rooms in a chair, the wealthy Duchess must, nevertheless, have experienced how little there was, in her vast possessions, that could atone for the infirmities of human nature.
A very few months before her death she requested an extension of the lease of Marlborough-house, the term of which had been extended in the reign of George the First. This residence had been built at the entire expense of the Duke of Marlborough, who had likewise paid Sir Richard Beelings two thousand pounds for what the Duchess calls a pretended claim which he had upon the land; so that she considered that she had as just a claim “to an extension as any tenant of the crown could have;” yet she deemed it prudent to make the application to government whilst Mr. Pelham was at the head of the Treasury, “he being the only person in that station who would oblige her, or to whom she would be obliged;” adding to this remark, that Mr. Pelham “had been very civil to her, and was the only person in employment who had been so for many years.” The letter in which this petition was contained was written in June 1744, and the Duchess died in October. Such was the clearness of her faculties, and so strongly were her desires still fixed upon all the privileges which she thought she merited.
Had she been blessed with an exalting and practical faith, such a faith as elevates the heart, and chastens those angry passions and wilful discontents which embitter the dark valley of old age far more even than bodily suffering, the Duchess, looking around her upon those whom she had the power to bless, might have been happy. But, without by any means imputing to her that scepticism with which it was the fashion of the day to charge her, it must be allowed that there is no reason to suppose that the Duchess’s path in life was illumined by those rays which guide the humble and practical Christian through the changes and chances of the world. Her views were all bounded to the scene before her: a spoiled child, the victim of prosperity, as well as its favourite, she received the bounties of Providence as if they had been her due, whilst she aggravated its dispensations of pain by a murmuring spirit.[[403]]
In the midst of her unenjoyed wealth, some acts of charity employed her later days. Such persons as had fallen into decay, were never, if they bore good characters, repulsed by her.[[404]] Imposition of any kind she detected instantly, and exposed it in her own eccentric and fearless manner. Having, on one occasion, sent a costly suit of clothes to be made by a certain fashionable dressmaker, Mrs. Buda, the Duchess, on the dress being completed, missed some yards of the expensive material which she had sent. She discovered and punished the fraud in the following manner. Mrs. Buda had a diamond ring which she valued greatly, and wore frequently when attending the Duchess’s orders. The Duchess pretended to be pleased with this ring, and begged a loan of it as a pattern. Having kept it some days, she sent it to Mrs. Buda’s forewoman, with a message importing that it was to be shown to her, as a token between her grace and Mrs. Buda that a certain piece of cloth should be returned instead. The woman, knowing the ring, sent the Duchess the remnant of cloth which had been fraudulently kept by Mrs. Buda; upon which the Duchess sent for Mrs. Buda, and putting the ring into her hand, said, that since she had now recovered the cloth which had been stolen from her, Mrs. Buda should regain the ring which the Duchess had kept.[[405]]