Mrs. Siddons proceeded on her melancholy journey, stopping to pay a visit to Shakespeare’s house at Stratford, and thence to North Wales, where, at Conway Castle and Penman Mawr, they did the tourist business of gazing at sunsets through ruined windows, and listening to Welsh harpers harping below. “In that romantic time and place,” Campbell tells us in his ambiguous way, Mrs. Siddons “honoured the humblest poet of her acquaintance by remembering him; and, let the reader blame or pardon my egotism as he may think fit, I cannot help transcribing what the Diarist adds: Mrs. Siddons said: ‘I wish that Campbell were here.’”
The bathos is complete when, the poet tells us, on Miss Wilkinson’s authority, that while looking at a magnificent landscape of rocks and water, a lady within hearing of them exclaimed in ecstasy: “This awful scenery makes me feel as if I were only a worm, or a grain of dust, on the face of the earth.” Mrs. Siddons turned round and said, “I feel very differently!”
She spent two months acting successfully in Dublin; then she went to Cork, and then to Belfast. On her return to Dublin she received the news of the death of her father at the ripe age of eighty-two. Although not unexpected, the severance of this life-long affection, coming, as it did, at a time when other sorrows and anxieties weighed on her, was a trying blow, and we find her writing to Dr. Whalley with a certain irritation that betrays her state of mind, and also betrays her attitude towards her husband at this time on money matters.
“I thank you for your kind condolence. My dear father died the death of the righteous; may my last end be like his, without a groan. With respect to my dear Mrs. Pennington, my heart is too much alive to her unhappy situation, and my affection for her too lively, to have induced the necessity of opening a wound which is of itself too apt to bleed. Indeed, indeed, my dear Sir, there was no occasion to recall those sad and tender scenes to soften my nature; but let it pass. You need not be informed, I imagine, that such a sum as £80 is too considerable to be immediately produced out of a woman’s quarterly allowance; but, as I have not the least doubt of Mr. Siddons being ready and willing to offer this testimony of regard and gratitude, I beg you will arrange the business with him immediately. I will write to him this day, if I can find a moment’s time. If you can devise any quicker mode of accomplishing your amiable purpose, rely upon my paying the £80 within the next six months. For God’s sake do not let it slip through. If I knew how to send the money from here, I would do it this instant; but, considering the delay of distance, and the caprice of wind and sea, it will be more expeditiously done by Mr. Siddons. God bless and restore you to perfect health and tranquillity.”
We can read between the lines of this letter, as we know that about this time she received a pressing request from her husband for money to fit out their son George for India, and to pay debts incurred on the decoration of the house in Great Marlborough Street, suggesting that in consequence she had better accept an engagement in Liverpool. She preferred, however, though harassed by disagreements with Jones the manager, to remain in Dublin. A report was circulated, as on the occasion of her first visit to Ireland, that she had refused to play for the benefit of the Lying-in Hospital, a charity much patronised by the Dublin ladies. She indignantly refuted this accusation, ending with words that show her state of mental suffering:—
“It is hard to bear at one and the same time the pressure of domestic sorrow, the anxiety of business, and the necessity of healing a wounded reputation; but such is the rude enforcement of the time, and I must sustain it as I am enabled by that Power who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.”
Her son George came and spent a fortnight with her before his departure for India, and the news from home concerning her daughter still seemed good. Like a thunderbolt, therefore, from a summer sky, came a letter from Mr. Siddons addressed to Miss Wilkinson, saying that Sally was very ill, but begging her not to make Mrs. Siddons anxious by telling her. Miss Wilkinson, however, felt it to be her duty to show the letter. The mother’s heart divined all that was not said. She declared her intention of starting for England without delay. A violent gale had blown for some days, and no vessel would leave the harbour. Two days later a reassuring letter came from Siddons addressed to his wife, telling her all was well again, and advising her to go to Cork. She went, but her miserable state of mind may be guessed from a letter addressed to Mrs. Fitzhugh:—
“Cork, March 21st, 1803.
“My Dear Friend,