We later find her making every exertion to rescue the son of the man who had saved her, from punishment for desertion.
“I have written myself almost blind for the last three days, worrying everybody to get a poor young man, who otherwise bears a most excellent character, saved from the disgrace and hideous torture of the lash, to which he has exposed himself. I hope to God I shall succeed. He is the son of the man—by me ever to be blest—who preserved me from being burned to death in the Winter’s Tale. The business has cost me a great deal of time, but if I attain my purpose I shall be richly paid. It is twelve o’clock at night; I am tired very much. To-morrow is my last appearance. In a few days I shall go to see my dear girl, Cecilia. How I long to see the darling! Oh! how you would have enjoyed my entrée in Constance last night. I was received really as if it had been my first appearance in the season. I have gone about to breakfasts and dinners for this unfortunate young man, till I am quite worn out with them. You know how pleasure, as it is called, fatigues.”
CHAPTER XIII.
SORROWS.
Though still suffering from enfeebled health, Mrs. Siddons again made up her mind to visit Dublin in the spring of 1802. A strange depression, partly the result of physical weakness, and partly the result of mental anxiety, came over her courageous spirit, paralysing all energy, and breaking down her usual calm composure. We find this woman, who to the outside public presented a cold and hard exterior, weeping hysterically on taking leave of her friends. She told Mr. Greatheed she felt that before they met again a great affliction would have fallen on them both. They never did meet till after the death of his son Bertie and her daughter Sarah. To Mrs. Piozzi she wrote:—
“May 1802.
“Farewell, my beloved friend—a long, long farewell! Oh, such a day as this has been! To leave all that is dear to me. I have been surrounded by my family, and my eyes have dwelt with a foreboding tenderness, too painful, on the venerable face of my dear father, that tells me I shall look on it no more. I commit my children to your friendly protection, with a full and perfect reliance on the goodness you have always manifested towards me.
“Your ever faithful and affectionate
“S. Siddons.”
The mother’s heart could have hardly had a foreboding of the second affliction about to fall on her then. A few weeks after she had taken her departure from Marlborough Street, Sally describes to Patty Wilkinson, who had accompanied Mrs. Siddons, picnics and parties she and her friend Dorothy Place had attended, much to their amusement and delight. The girl gives an account also of her brother Henry’s marriage with Miss Murray, who, she says, “looked very beautiful in a white chip hat, with a lace cap under it, her long dark pelisse tied together with purple bows ready for travelling,” and mentions how she and Dorothy “laughed uproariously” at a play they had “attended.” Yet death had already laid his hand on this bright young life.