The request was, of course, granted, but the effect was to still further reduce the amount which Harness hoped to hold in trust for the daughter, who, as he knew well, was in no way to blame.
Finally, to close this distressful chapter, this year of misery, Miss Mitford sustained two accidents, both severe, which left her almost a wreck from shock.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] The house is now known as “Sea Lawn.”
CHAPTER XXVI
DEATH OF DR. MITFORD
The terrible calamity which marred Miss Barrett’s health-seeking sojourn in Torquay so unnerved her that it was feared her reason would give way and that she would succumb to her grief. Under these circumstances it was decided to remove her without delay back to Wimpole Street, the long journey, by road, being undertaken in a specially-constructed carriage in which a number of contrivances had been embodied in order to avoid any jarring or other inconvenience to the invalid. From that date onward numberless letters passed between the two friends—Miss Barrett with her burden of sorrow and Miss Mitford with her load of care and poverty.
The friendship was of such a character that each wrote to the other with the greatest freedom and there can be no doubt that this interchange of ideas and outpouring of heart afforded a blessed relief to both, and especially to Miss Mitford, who had so few intimates among women. Indeed we may safely affirm that it was to only two people—William Harness and Miss Barrett—that Miss Mitford ever really laid bare her true self. Thus in the letters of 1842, a year destined to rank as the most trying and painful in the whole of Miss Mitford’s life, we find her telling out frankly the full tale of her miseries.
“It will help you to understand how impossible it is for me to earn money as I ought to do, when I tell you that this very day I received your dear letter, and sixteen others; that then my father brought the newspaper to hear the ten or twelve columns of news from India. By that time there were three parties of people in the garden; eight others arrived soon after—some friends, some acquaintances, some strangers. My father sees me greatly fatigued—much worn—losing my voice even in common conversation; and he lays it all to the last walk or drive—the only thing that keeps me alive—and tells everybody he sees that I am killing myself by walking or driving; and he hopes that I shall at last take some little care of myself and not stir beyond the garden. Is not this the perfection of self-deception? And yet I would not awaken him from this dream—no, not for all the world—so strong a hold sometimes does a light word take of his memory and his heart—he broods over it—cries over it!” This was written to excuse herself from accepting an invitation to town.
Later she details how, when her father was at last got to sleep, she stole out of the house at night with Flush, the spaniel, and the puppies, for a scamper round the meadows. “How grateful I am,” she added, “to that great, gracious Providence who makes the most intense enjoyment the cheapest and the commonest!”—truly she was thankful for the small mercies—“And my father tells me I am killing myself—as if that which is balm and renovation were poison and suicide.
“It is now half-past one and my father has only this very moment gone into his room to bed. He sleeps all the afternoon in the garden, and then would sit up all night to be read to.” Then, as if the cares of the household were not enough, the Doctor invited “that gander feast, the Reading Whist Club, out to dine; and then, between helping to cook, and talking and waiting upon the good folks, we got the stiffness rubbed out of our bones in a wonderful manner.” The stiffness alluded to was occasioned by being caught in a storm while out driving, but it will be noticed there is no mention of the expense of this “gander feast,” arranged, as it was, simply in order to satisfy that father, whom to cross might result in his prostration and tears! “I am content to die,” she wrote, “if only preserved from the far bitterer misery of seeing my dear, dear father want his accustomed comforts; content, ay, happy, if that far deeper wretchedness be spared.” It was indeed fortunate, in a sense, that Miss Barrett was willing to read all this and never question the attitude adopted by her friend to this selfish father. Possibly it was patent to all who knew Miss Mitford intimately that to attempt to question the wisdom of her self-sacrifice could only result in adding pain to a heart already over-full with grief. Happily, too, there were occasional breaks to this almost incessant gloom. In July she wrote to say how gratified she had been at learning from a friend that, while travelling in Spain, and being laid up with illness, longing for “some English or English-like book, he received a Spanish translation of Our Village. A real compliment, and I tell you of it, just as I told my father, because I know that it will please your dear heart.”