Earlier in this book we told how Byron had abstained from dedicatingChilde Haroldto his friend William Harness for fear it might injure the latter’s reputation. It was a scruple which Miss Mitford shared with the great poet, otherwise it would have given her the keenest pleasure thus publicly to associate her old friend and companion with one of her dramatic works. Being now assured that her prose was worthy as an offering, she proposed that her new book, theCountry Stories, should go forth with William Harness’s name on the Dedication page. She wrote him on the subject:—
“My dear William,—“I have only one moment in which to proffer a petition to you. I have a little trumpery volume,Country Stories, about to be published. Will you permit me to give these tales some little value in my own eyes by inscribing them (of course, in a few true and simple words,) to you, my very old and most kind friend? I would not dedicate a play to you, for fear of causing you injury in your profession;but I do not think that this slight testimony of a very sincere affection could do you harm in that way, for even those who do not allow novels in their house sanction my little books.Ever affectionately yours,“M. R. Mitford.”
“My dear William,—
“I have only one moment in which to proffer a petition to you. I have a little trumpery volume,Country Stories, about to be published. Will you permit me to give these tales some little value in my own eyes by inscribing them (of course, in a few true and simple words,) to you, my very old and most kind friend? I would not dedicate a play to you, for fear of causing you injury in your profession;but I do not think that this slight testimony of a very sincere affection could do you harm in that way, for even those who do not allow novels in their house sanction my little books.
Ever affectionately yours,“M. R. Mitford.”
To this request, particularly gratifying to its recipient, permission was immediately granted, and the volume appeared with the following Dedication:—
“To the Rev. William Harness, whose old hereditary friendship has been the pride and pleasure of her happiest hours, her consolation in the sorrows, and her support in the difficulties of life, this little volume is most respectfully and affectionately inscribed by the Author.”
“To the Rev. William Harness, whose old hereditary friendship has been the pride and pleasure of her happiest hours, her consolation in the sorrows, and her support in the difficulties of life, this little volume is most respectfully and affectionately inscribed by the Author.”
We, who have so far followed Miss Mitford’s life, know how just a tribute was this dedication, and at the same time we may be able, imperfectly perhaps, to understand how true was her reference to the sorrows and difficulties with which she had been forced to contend. By this time, under ordinary circumstances, she might have hoped that her pecuniary difficulties were wellnigh overcome; but this was not to be, and in this year (1837) the liabilities of the Mitford household were so overwhelming and the wherewithal to meet them so slight that Miss Mitford was reduced to the lowest depths of despair.
Photo of bridge over river.A view in Swallowfield Park, one of Miss Mitford’s favourite scenes.
A view in Swallowfield Park, one of Miss Mitford’s favourite scenes.
Taking counsel with William Harness, she wrote a touching appeal, in May, to Lord Melbourne, begging the grant of a State Pension. It was a piteous appeal, and concluded thus:—“My life has been one of struggle and of labour, almost as much withdrawn from the literary as from the fashionable world; but I am emboldened to take this step by the sight of my father’s white hairs, and the certainty that such another winter as the last would take from me all power of literary exertion, and send those white hairs in sorrow to the grave.”
Letters on the subject were also despatched to the Duke of Devonshire, to Miss Fox and to Lady Dacre in the hope that they would throw the weight of their influence into the petition. “Is all this right?” she asked William Harness. “It may not succeed, but it can do no harm. If it do succeed, I shall owe all to you, who have spirited me up to the exertion. No woman’s constitution can stand the wear and tear of all this anxiety. It killed poor Mrs. Hemans, and will, if not averted, kill me.”
The most strenuous efforts were made by highly-placed friends to influence Lord Melbourne in the petitioner’s favour, among them being those already mentioned, Lord and Lady Radnor, Lord Palmerston, “and many others whom I have never seen, whose talents and character, as well as their rank and station, render their notice and approbation a distinction as well asan advantage.” All this resulted in the granting of the Pension, notice of which was conveyed to the anxious one within a fortnight of the original petition. In addition to this Miss Mitford received private assurances that the sum granted—£100 per annum—was intended merely as an instalment, and that it was hoped to settle it at £300 before long—a forlorn hope, as it happened!
Thus reassured, Miss Mitford renewed her hopeful outlook on life, and the month following was gratified by the receipt of an offer to editFinden’s Tableaux, a large and handsome quarto publication of a style common to those days, embellished with extremely beautiful full-page steel engravings by the first artists, round which were written descriptive poetry or prose by writers chosen from the front ranks in Literature. The production of these volumes was very costly, being bound in full leather, lavishly tooled, and they were primarily intended to lie upon drawing-room tables for the amusement and pleasure of visitors. Miss Mitford was, of course, delighted with the offer and gladly accepted it, and one of her first editorial letters was addressed to her “Sweet Love,” Miss Barrett, requesting a poem, the payment for which was to be £5. The poem was supplied—it was entitledA Romance of the Ganges, and was the first of a goodly number of similar contributions which Miss Barrett supplied to her friend’s order. “Depend upon it,” wrote Miss Mitford, “the time will come whenthose verses of yours will have a money value,” a prophecy which, happily, was fulfilled.
Among the letters of the year is one to Miss Jephson on the subject ofPickwick Papers. This friend had acknowledged that she had not, as yet, even heard of this successful work, then being published in paper-covered monthly parts. “So you never heard of thePickwick Papers! Well! They publish a number once a month and print 25,000. The bookseller has made about £10,000 by the speculation. It is fun—but without anything unpleasant:a lady might read it all aloud; and it is so graphic, so individual, and so true, that you could curtsey to all the people as you met them in the streets. I did not think there had been a place where English was spoken to whichBozhad not penetrated. All the boys and girls talk his fun—the boys in the streets; and yet they who are of the highest taste like it the most. Sir Benjamin Brodie takes it to read in his carriage between patient and patient; and Lord Denman studiesPickwickon the bench whilst the jury are deliberating.Dotake some means to borrow it.”
During the year Miss Barrett’s broken health gave cause for great alarm, and she was sent to Torquay in the hope that a lengthy stay in the salubrious climate of that town would restore her. A continuous correspondence was maintained between the two friends, and it is from one despatched in July that we learn of a renewed illnessof Dr. Mitford and of the great strain imposed on his daughter as a consequence. “I am now sitting on the ground outside his door, with my paper on my knee, watching to hear whether he sleeps. Oh! my dearest love, at how high a price do we buy the joy of one great undivided affection, such as binds us heart to heart! For the last two years I have not had a week without anxiety and alarm, so that fear now seems to be a part of my very self; and I love him so much the more tenderly for this clinging fear, and for his entire reliance upon me! I have not left him for a drive, or to drink tea with a friend, for a year.” Added to this trouble came the discovery that serious dilapidations in the cottage were becoming too bad to be overlooked, and were an actual menace to the safety of the inmates. The landlady, “a most singular compound of miser and shrew,” refused to repair at her own charge and, after carefully considering ways and means, it was decided that the cost of removing would be greater than that of the necessary repairs, and so, to avoid further discomfort to her father, Miss Mitford had the workmen in and the place was renovated piecemeal, a room at a time, necessitating the removal of the furniture from room to room and causing the wearied author endless worry and annoyance. The year wore on and 1838 found the Mitfords in a worse plight than ever, the expenses of the renovations having depleted their financesalarmingly and they owing money in many quarters. William Harness was at last appealed to to sell out the money in the Funds, and to let Miss Mitford have £600, the balance to be devoted to purchasing an annuity on her own and her father’s life. The appeal was couched in such agonized language that Harness agreed, and the debts were paid, but no sooner were they cleared off than Miss Mitford was taken seriously ill with internal trouble, induced by excessive anxiety and overwork, resulting in a double loss occasioned by the doctor’s fees and by the enforced cessation from work of the money-earner.
Even at this juncture Miss Mitford’s thoughts were only for her father, and in offering thanks to God that he had been spared to her, she also bemoans her lot that she has not strength enough to give her whole life to him, to read to him, to drive out with him, to play cribbage with him, and never be five minutes from his side! “I love him a million times better than ever, and can quite understand that love of a mother for her firstborn, which this so fond dependence produces in the one so looked to.”
It is quite evident from the few records of the years 1838, 1839 and on, that Dr. Mitford’s increasing age rendered him more and more querulous and exacting in his demands upon his daughter for attention and creature comforts. “He could read, I think,” she wrote in 1840, “but somehow to read to himself seems to give himno pleasure; and if any one else is so kind as to offer to read to him,thatdoes not do. They don’t know what he likes, and where to skip, and how to lighten heavy parts without losing the thread of the story. By practice I can contrive to do this, even with books that I have never seen before. There’s an instinct in it, I think.” Fortunately the year was brightened by a reconciliation with Talfourd, but then it was saddened by the suicide of Haydon, who, embittered with the world and largely in debt, sought relief in this terrible fashion. And for Miss Mitford the tragedy was heightened by the fact that, only the week before, he had visited the cottage and left a few valuables “in her charge,” as he said, “for a short while.” Following this came news, in the summer, from Miss Barrett at Torquay, who had just sustained a tragic bereavement by the death, from drowning, of her brother Edward. He had gone out with a friend, sailing in the Bay of which the sister had a magnificent and extensive view from her windows in the Beacon Terrace.[28]Delightedly watching the little vessel, she was suddenly alarmed by noticing that the occupants appeared to be in difficulties. A sudden squall had arisen, and while the agonized sister watched, impotent, from her invalid-chair, the boat capsized and her brother and his friend both perished.
The tragic news made a deep impression onMiss Mitford’s mind; indeed she never forgot the incident, and when, many years afterwards, she was compiling herRecollectionsit was she who first gave the story to the world, unconsciously causing untold anguish to her friend, to whom the merest reference to the catastrophe or to Torquay was sufficient to render her prostrate for days. “I have so often been asked what could be the shadow that had passed over that young heart, that, now that time has softened the first agony, it seems to me right that the world should hear the story.” When the book was reviewed in 1852 the Brownings were living in Paris and only became aware of the fact that the “veil had been lifted from the private life” of E. B. B. through the call of a journalist employed on theRevue des Deux Mondeswho had been commissioned to write an article on the Brownings and hesitated to quote the incident, without permission, lest it should cause additional pain to Mrs. Browning. The revelation of the tragic episode, so long and so well kept from the world, grieved and shocked Mrs. Browning beyond measure and resulted in her sending a letter of tender reproof to her dear friend who had been so indiscreet. “You cannot understand,” she wrote. “No, you cannot understand, with all your wide sympathy (perhaps, because you are not morbid, and I am), the sort of susceptibility I have on one subject.... And now those dreadful words are going the roundof the newspapers, to be verified here, commented on there, gossiped about everywhere; and I, for my part, am frightened to look at a paper as a child in the dark.... I feel it deeply; through tears of pain I feel it; and if, as I dare say you will, you think me very foolish, do not on that account think me ungrateful. Ungrateful I never can be to you, my much loved and kindest friend.”
Miss Mitford was, naturally, deeply distressed to learn that her kindly-intentioned article had caused mental suffering to her friend, and wrote a most abject reply, which drew from Mrs. Browning a missive tender and full of forgiveness, which is among the gems of her published letters.
But this reference to the Brownings has caused us to anticipate the years somewhat. We must return to the year 1840, full as it was to Miss Mitford of increasing trouble and anxiety. The summer saw her threatened with a calamity as to her beloved garden. It was now practically her only pleasure and recreation, and she was therefore deeply concerned to learn that their shrewish landlady intended to sell the land which it occupied and which the Mitfords rented separately from the house. It comprised about an acre, and they feared that some sordid speculator would purchase it who, knowing the value placed upon it by the tenants, would raise the rent inordinately, a course which, in view of their poverty, would mean its relinquishment.Fortunately news of the sale came to the knowledge of a friend, who purchased the ground and handed it over to the old tenants rent-free for so long as they required it.
The year 1841 was not less troublous than its predecessor, for it opened with Dr. Mitford lying seriously ill from a chill caught in the discharge of magisterial duties against his physician’s advice and his daughter’s pleadings. The occasion was the Quarter Sessions at Reading, a combination of business and pleasure—for convivial gatherings succeeded the administration of justice—so dear to Dr. Mitford’s heart. It was, indeed, astonishing—Miss Mitford thought it matter for astonishment—that on these occasions her father was capable of exertions unaided, to perform which at home he required the help of three persons. The result was anguish of mind and body for his daughter, who took upon herself the whole duty of nursing the invalid. Rest and warmth were prescribed, but all the daughter’s attentions were rendered nugatory by the patient, who disobeyed injunctions like a petulant child, persisting in “getting out of bed, or up in bed, or something as bad,” to be followed by periods of irritability which nothing would soothe, not even the being read to, an art in which the nurse excelled. Under these circumstances literary work had to be performed in moments snatched from the bedside of the beloved parent or when, finally exhausted, he sunk to prolonged slumber. Then,fearful of disturbing him, his devoted daughter sat on a low stool at the foot of the bed, with her writing materials before her, with a chair for table, composing and correcting into the small hours of the morning until, as she said, she nearly fainted.
The natural result was that, upon her father’s recovery, she was stricken down from sheer exhaustion and kept to her bed for weeks. Convalescent, she went out in the pony-chaise for an airing with Kerenhappuck her maid and companion, during which a trace broke and the pony bolted. They tore madly along the road, past frightened men who could do nothing to stop the brute, and with the maid sawing ineffectually at the reins which, for greater power, she had wound about her arms. Soon the turnpike-gate was neared, adding to the fear of the terrorized women, who dreaded lest the pony, a famous hunter, would leap it, with results too dreadful to think of. Fortunately the gate-keeper saw them just in time and flung the gate open. On they went in this mad fashion until, by good fortune, the remaining trace pulled the collar in such a way that the pony was nearly choked and he was brought to a standstill. “And since then,” wrote Miss Mitford, “I have been very ill. I have not sent for Dr. May. I seldom do, for it frightens my father. After all, a wretched life is mine. Health is gone; but if I can but last while my dear father requires me;if the little money we have can but last, then it would matter little how soon I, too, were released. We live alone in the world, and I feel that neither will long outlast the other. My life is only valuable as being useful tohim. I have lived for him and him only; and it seems to me, God, in His infinite mercy, does release those who have so lived, nearly at the same time. The spring is broken, and the watch goes down.” With her energies thus reduced, work was at a standstill; the brain refused to be driven, and as no work meant no pay, the household once again drifted into debt, adding fresh terrors to the already over-taxed mind. Misfortunes never come alone and, when the outlook was almost too gloomy to be faced, the Findens stopped payment for work done, a double calamity in that this meant the closing of another source of employment. Creditors became importunate and threatening, and this resulted in another appeal to William Harness that certain of the money still available for use should be taken from investment and devoted to the immediate and pressing needs of the household. “Could you know all I have to undergo and suffer, you would wonder that I am alive—you would rather wonder that I have lived through the winter than that I have failed to provide the means of support for our little household.... It has been all my fault now, and if that fault be visited upon my father’s white head, and he be sent to jail formy omissions, I should certainly not long remain to grieve over my sin, for such it is.... If you refuse, he may be sent to jail, which he would not survive; or if he survived, it would be with a spirit so broken that he would never leave his arm-chair, which (to say nothing of the misery) would totally disable me from working in any way.”
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.”
[28]The house is now known as “Sea Lawn.”
[28]The house is now known as “Sea Lawn.”