This success must have been very gratifying, although any pecuniary advantage it brought was immediately swallowed up in trying to discharge the family’s obligations and to provide for present dire needs. The situation was indeed pitiful, especially for the two women, who were forced to appear before their friends with a smile at a time when their hearts were heavy and desolation and ruin seemed inevitable. A number of letters from Bertram House to Dr. Mitford in London, during the year 1811, give sufficient indication of the suffering they were enduring, and this at a time when Miss Mitford was exercising her mind in the production of a work the failure of which would have been a disaster. Under date January 21, 1811, she wrote: “Mr. Clissold and Thompson Martin came here yesterday, my own darling, and both of them declared that you had allowed Thompson Martin to choose what he would of the pictures, excepting about a dozen which you had named to them; and I really believe they were right, though I did not tell them so. Nothing on earth could be more perfectly civil than they were; and Martin, to my great pleasure and astonishment, but to the great consternation of Clissold, fixed upon the landscape in the corner of the drawing-room, with a great tree and an ass, painted by Corbould, 1803. It had taken his fancy, he said; and, though less valuable than some of those you offered to him, yet, as he did not mean to sell it, he should prefer it to any other. I told him I would write you word what he said, and lauded the gods for the man’s foolishness. I have heard you say fifty times that the piece was of no consequence; and, indeed, as it is by a living artist of no great repute, it is impossible that it should be of much value. Of course you will let him have it; and I wish you would write to inquire how it should be sent.”
These pictures were being taken in liquidation of debts, an incident sufficient of itself to wound the pride of a woman like Mrs. Mitford. But, in addition to this, she found herself faced with the problem of dismissing servants and no money wherewith to settle up their arrears of wages. It was one of the few occasions on which her too gentle spirit rose in revolt. Accompanying her daughter’s letter she sent a note to her husband stating: “I shall depend on a little supply of cash to-morrow, to settle with Frank and Henry, as the few shillings I have left will not more than suffice for letters, and such trifles. As to the cause of our present difficulties, it avails not how they originated. The only question is, how they can be most speedily and effectually put an end to. I ask for no details, which you do not voluntarily choose to make. A forced confidence my whole soul would revolt at; and the pain it would give you to offer it would be far short of what I should suffer in receiving it.” A dignified, yet tender rebuke, showing a remarkable forbearance in a woman so greatly wronged.
Still worse was to follow, for at the beginning of March Dr. Mitford was imprisoned for debt and only secured his release by means of the proceeds of a hastily-arranged sale in town of more of his pictures, augmented by a loan from St. Quintin. At the same time he was involved with Nathaniel Ogle, “more hurt at your silence than at your non-payment,” and was experiencing difficulties in regard to certain land adjoining Bertram House for which he had long been negotiating—having paid a deposit—but a transaction which Lord Shrewsbury, the owner, hesitated to complete in view of the Doctor’s unreliable position.
At length the anxiety became greater than Mrs. Mitford could bear, and for a time she was prostrated.
“I am happy,” wrote Miss Mitford, “that the speedy disposal of the pictures will enable you, as I hope it will, to settle this unpleasant affair. Once out of debt and settled in some quiet cottage, we shall all be well and happy again. But it must not be long delayed; for my dear mother must be spared a repetition of such shocks.”
Even so, the Doctor gave the waiting women no information regarding the sale of the pictures or the condition of affairs until Mrs. Mitford reproved him for his neglect; but the reproof was softened in her next letter, for she says: “I know you were disappointed in the sale of the pictures. But, my love, if we have less wealth than we hoped, we shall not have the less affection; these clouds may blow over more happily than we have expected. We must not look for an exemption from all the ills incident to humanity, and we have many blessings still left us, the greatest of which is that darling child to whom our fondest hopes are directed.”
Moved at last to desperate action, Dr. Mitford made an endeavour to sell Bertram House, with the intention of removing to some less pretentious dwelling, possibly in London. The property, described as an “Elegant Freehold Mansion and 42 Acres of Rich Land (with possession),” was put up for sale by auction at Messrs. Robins’, The Piazza, Covent Garden, on June 22, 1811, but apparently the reserve was not reached, and no sale was effected. Miss Mitford did her best to straighten out matters, and indeed showed uncommon aptitude for business in one whose whole education had been classical. To her father, then staying at “New Slaughter’s Coffee House,” she wrote on July 5, “The distressing intelligence conveyed in your letter, my best-beloved darling, was not totally unexpected. From the unpleasant reports respecting your affairs, I was prepared to fear it. When did a ruined man (and the belief is as bad as the reality) ever get half the value of the property which he is obliged to sell? Would that Monck” real property. If the thousand pounds of Lord Bolton, the six hundred of Lord Shrewsbury, the three hundred at Overton, and the sale of stocks, books, crops and furniture will clear all the other debts, this may still be done. If not, we must take what we can get and confine ourselves to still humbler hopes and expectations. This scheme is the result of my deliberations. Tell me if you approve of it, and tell me, I implore you, my most beloved father, the full extent of your embarrassments. This is no time for false delicacy on either side. I dread no evil but suspense. I hope you know me well enough to be assured that, if I cannot relieve your sufferings, both pecuniary and mental, I will at least never add to them. Whatever those embarrassments may be, of one thing I am certain, that the world does not contain so proud, so happy, or so fond a daughter. I would not exchange my father, even though we toiled together for our daily bread, for any man on earth, though he could pour all the gold of Peru into my lap. Whilst we are together, we never can be wretched; and when all our debts are paid, we shall be happy. God bless you, my dearest and most beloved father. Pray take care of yourself, and do not give way to depression. I wish I had you here to comfort you.”
The advertisement in the Reading papers, announcing the sale of Bertram House, was, of course, something in the nature of a surprise to the County folk, although, doubtless, some of them were sufficiently well-informed to know that the Mitfords were in trouble. “There is no news in this neighbourhood,” wrote Miss Mitford to Sir William Elford, “excepting what we make ourselves by our intended removal; and truly I think our kind friends and acquaintances ought to be infinitely obliged to us for affording them a topic of such inexhaustible fertility. Deaths and marriages are nothing to it. There is, where they go? and why they go? and when they go? and how they go? and who will come? and when? and how? and what are they like? and how many in family? and more questions and answers, and conjectures, than could be uttered in an hour by three female tongues, or than I (though a very quick scribbler) could write in a week.”
There was a very practical side to Miss Mitford’s nature and, for a woman, a somewhat uncommon disregard for the conventions, a disregard which developed with her years. Consequently, what people thought or said affected her very little, and she devoted her mind rather to solving difficulties than to wringing her hands over them. That indolence of mind and body, of which she was self-accused, she conquered, and though domestic troubles were heaped about her, she set to work on a new poem which was to be entitled Blanch of Castile.
To her father she wrote: “I wish to heaven anybody would give me some money! If I get none for Blanch, I shall give up the trade in despair. I must write Blanch—at least, begin to write it, soon. I wish you could beg, borrow, or steal (anything but buy) Southey’s Chronicle of the Cid, and bring it down for me.”... A week or so later she wrote: “I have now seven hundred lines written; can you sound any of the booksellers respecting it? I can promise that it shall be a far superior poem to Christina, and I think I can finish it by November. We ought to get something by it. It will have the advantage of a very interesting story, and a much greater variety of incident and character. I only hope it may be productive.”