All Bath wore a face of mourning. The transition from gaiety and exultation was really awful. What an extinction of youth and happiness ! The poor Princess Charlotte had never known a moment"s suffering since her marriage. Her lot seemed perfect.
Prince Leopold is, indeed, to be pitied.
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(Madame d"Arblay to Mrs. Broome.) Bath, November 25, 1817.
.....We are all here impressed with the misfortunes of the royal house, and chiefly with the deadly blow inflicted on the perfect conjugal happiness of the first young couple in the kingdom. The first couple not young bad already received a blow yet, perhaps, more frightful : for to have, yet lose-to keep, yet never to enjoy the being we most prize, is surely yet more torturing than to yield at once to the stroke which we know awaits us, and by which, at last, we must necessarily and indispensably fall. The queen supports herself with the calm and serenity belonging to one inured to misfortune, and submissive to Providence. The Princess Elizabeth has native spirits that resist all woe after the first shock, though she is full of kindness, goodness, and zeal for right action.
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE. SERIOUS ILLNESS OF GENERAL D"ARBLAY.
(Mrs. Piozzi to Madame d"Arblay.) Bath, Thursday, February 26, 1818.
I had company in the room when Lady K-"s note arrived, desiring I would send you some papers of hers by the person who should bring it. I had offered a conveyance to London by some friends of my own, but she preferred their pa.s.sing through your hands. Accept my truest wishes for the restoration of complete peace to a mind which has been SO long and so justly admired, loved, and praised by, Dear madam,--Your ever faithful, H. L. P.
Who attends the general? and why do you think him SO very bad?
(Madame d"Arblay to Mrs. Piozzi.) Bath, February 26, 1818.
There is no situation in which a kind remembrance from you, my dear madam, would not awaken me to some pleasure; but my poor sufferer was so very ill when your note came, that it was not possible for me to answer it. That I think him so very bad, is that I see him perpetually in pain Page 423
nearly insupportable ; yet I am a.s.sured it is local and unattended with danger while followed up with constant care and caution. This supports my spirits, which bear me and enable me to help him through a malady of anguish and difficulty. It is a year this very month since he has been in the hands of Mr. Hay as a regular patient. Mr. Hay was recommended to us by Mrs. Locke and Mrs. Angerstein, whom he attends as physician, from their high opinion of his skill and discernment. But, alas ! all has failed here ; and we have called in Mr. Tudor, as the case terminates in being one that demands a surgeon. Mr. Tudor gives me every comfort in prospect, but prepares me for long suffering, and slow, slow recovery.
Shall I apologise for this wordy explanation? No - you will see by it with what readiness I am happy, to believe that our interest in each other must ever be reciprocal.
Lady K- by no means intended to give me the charge of the papers; she only thought they might procure some pa.s.sing amus.e.m.e.nt to my invalid. I must, on the contrary, hope you will permit me to return them you, in a few days, for such conveyance as you may deem safe; I am now out of the way of seeking any.
I hope you were a little glad that my son has been among the high Wranglers.
NARRATIVE OF THE ILLNESS AND DEATH OF GENERAL D"ARBLAY.
THE GENERAL"S FIRST ATTACK: DELUSIVE HOPES.
Bolton Street, Berkeley Square.
It is now the 17th of November, 1819. A year and a half have pa.s.sed since I was blessed with the sight of my beloved husband.
I can devise no means to soothe my lonely woe, so likely of success as devoting my evening solitude to recollections of his excellences, and of every occurrence of his latter days, till I bring myself up to the radiant serenity of their end. I think it will be like pa.s.sing with him, with him himself, a few poor fleeting but dearly-cherished moments. I will call back the history of my beloved husband"s last illness. Ever present as it is to me, it will be a relief to set it down.
In Paris, in the autumn Of 1817, he was first attacked with Page 424
the deadly evil by which he was finally consumed. I suspected not his danger. He had left me in June, in the happy but most delusive persuasion that the journey and his native air would complete his recovery from the jaundice, which had attacked him in February, 1817. Far from ameliorating, his health went on daily declining. His letters, which at first were the delight and support of my existence, became disappointing, dejecting, afflicting. I sighed for his return ! I believed. he was trying experiments that hindered his recovery; and, indeed, I am persuaded he precipitated the evil by continual changes of system. At length his letters became so comfortless, that I almost expired with desire to join him - but he positively forbade my quitting our Alexander, who was preparing for his grand examination at Cambridge.
On the opening of October, 1817, Alex and I returned from Ilfracombe to Bath to meet our best friend. He arrived soon after, attended by his favourite medical man, Mr. Hay, whom he had met in Paris. We found him extremely altered-not in mind, temper, faculties--oh, no!--but in looks and strength: thin and weakened so as to be fatigued by the smallest exertion. He tried, however, to revive; we sought to renew our walks, but his strength was insufficient. He purchased a garden in the Crescent fields, and worked in it, but came home always the worse for the effort. His spirits were no longer in their state of native genial cheerfulness : he could still be awakened to gaiety, but gaiety was no longer innate, instinctive with him.
GENERAL D"ARBLAY PRESENTED TO THE QUEEN.
In this month, October, 1817, I had a letter from the Princess Elizabeth, to inform me that her majesty and herself were coming to pa.s.s four weeks in Bath. The queen"s stay was short, abruptly and sadly broken up by the death of the Princess Charlotte. In twenty-four hours after the evil tidings, they hastened to Windsor to meet the prince regent and almost immediately after the funeral, the queen and princess returned, accompanied by the Duke of Clarence. I saw them continually, and never pa.s.sed a day without calling at the royal abode by the queen"s express permission ; and during the whole period of their stay, my invalid appeared to be stationary in his health. I never quitted him save for this royal visit, and that only of a morning.
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He had always purposed being presented to her majesty in the pump-room, and the queen herself deigned to say "she should be very glad to see the general." Ill he was! suffering, emaciated, enfeebled! But he had always spirit awake to every call; and just before Christmas, 1817, we went together, between seven and eight o"clock in the morning, in chairs, to the pump-room. I thought I had never seen him look to such advantage.
His fine brow so open, his n.o.ble countenance so expressive, his features so formed for a painter"s pencil! This, too, was the last time he ever wore his military honours--his three orders of "St. Louis," "the Legion of Honour," and "Du Lys," or "De la Fid?lit?;" decorations which singularly became him, from his strikingly martial port and character.
The queen was brought to the circle in her sedan-chair, and led to the seat prepared for her by her vice-chamberlain, making a gracious general bow to the a.s.sembly as she pa.s.sed. Dr. Gibbs and Mr. Tudor waited upon her with the Bath water, and she conversed with them, and the mayor and aldermen, and her own people, for some time. After this she rose to make her round with a grace indescribable, and, to those who never witnessed it, inconceivable ; for it was such as to carry off age, infirmity, sickness, diminutive stature and to give her, in defiance of such disadvantages, a power of charming that rarely has been equalled.
Her face had a variety of expression that made her features soon seem agreeable; the intonations of her voice so accorded with her words, her language was so impressive, and her manner so engaging and encouraging, that it was not possible to be the object of her attention without being both struck with her uncommon abilities and fascinated by their exertion.
Such was the effect which she produced upon General d"Arblay, to whom she soon turned. Highly sensible to the honour of her distinction, he forgot his pains in his desire to manifest his grat.i.tude;--and his own smiles--how winning they became! Her majesty spoke of Bath, of Windsor, of the Continent; and while addressing him, her eyes turned to meet mine with a look that said, "Now I know I am making you happy!" She asked me, archly, whether I was not fatigued by coming to the pump-room so early?
and said, "Madame d"Arblay thinks I have never seen you before !
but she is mistaken, for I peeped at you through the window as you pa.s.sed to the Terrace at Windsor." Alas! the queen no Page 426
sooner ceased to address him than the pains he had suppressed became intolerable, and he retreated from the circle and sank upon a bench near the wall - he could stand no longer, and we returned home to spend the rest of the day in bodily misery.
GLOOMY FOREBODINGS.
Very soon after the opening of this fatal year 1818, expressions dropped from my beloved of his belief of his approaching end : they would have broken my heart, had not an incredulity --now my eternal wonder,--kept me in a constant persuasion that he was hypochondriac, and tormented with false apprehensions.
Fortunate, merciful as wonderful, was that incredulity, which, blinding me to my coming woe, enabled me to support my courage by my hopes, and helped me to sustain his own. In his occasional mournful prophecies, which I always rallied off and refused to listen to, he uttered frequently the kind words, "Et jamais je n"ai tant aim? la vie! Jamais, jamais, la vie ne m"a ?t? plus ch?re!"(317) How sweet to me were those words, which I thought- -alas, how delusively--would soothe and invigorate recovery!
The vivacity with which I exerted all the means in my power to fly from every evil prognostic, he was often struck with, and never angrily; on the contrary, he would exclaim, "Comme j"admire ton courage!"(318) while his own, on the observation, always revived. "My courage?" I always answered, "What courage? Am I not doing what I most desire upon earth--remaining by your side?
When you are not well, the whole universe is to me, there!"
Soon after, nevertheless, recurring to the mournful idea ever uppermost, he said, with a serenity the most beautiful, "Je voudrois que nous causa.s.sions sur tout cela avec calme,---doucement,--cheerfully m?me(319) as of a future voyage-- as of a subject of discussion--simply to exchange our ideas and talk them over."
Alas, alas ! how do I now regret that I seconded not this project, so fitted for all pious Christian minds, whether their pilgrimage be of shorter or longer duration. But I saw him
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I, oh, how ill! I felt myself well ; it was, therefore, apparent who must be the survivor in case of sunderment; and, therefore, all power of generalizing the subject was over. And much and ardently as I should have rejoiced in treating such a theme when he was well, or on his recovery, I had no power to sustain it thus situated. I could only attend his sick couch; I could only "live by fostering hopes of his revival, and seeking to make them reciprocal.
During this interval a letter from my affectionate sister Charlotte suggested our taking further advice to aid Mr. Hay, since the malady was so unyielding. /On January the 24th Mr.
Tudor came, but after an interview and examination, his looks were even forbidding. Mr. Hay had lost his air of satisfaction and complacency, Mr. Tudor merely inquired whether he should come again? "Oh, yes, yes, yes!" I cried, and they retired together.
And rapidly I flew, not alone from hearing, but from forming any opinion, and took refuge by the side of my beloved, whom I sought to console and revive. And this very day, as I have since found, he began his Diary for the year. It contains these words:--
"Jamais je n"ai tant aim? la vie que je suis en si grand danger de perdre; malgr? que je n"aye point de fi?vre, ni le moindre mal ? la t?te; et que j"aye non seulement l"esprit libre, mais le coeur d"un contentement Parfait. La volont? de Dieu soit faite!
J"attends pour ce soir ou demain le resultat d"une consultation."(320)
PRESENTS FROM THE QUEEN AND PRINCEss ELIZABETH.
On this same day Madame de Soyres brought me a packet from her majesty, and another from the Princess Elizabeth. The kind and gracious princess sent me a pair of silver camp candlesticks, with peculiar contrivances which she wrote me word might amuse the general as a military man, while they might be employed by myself to light my evening researches among the MSS. of my dear father, which she wished me to collect and to preface by a memoir.
Her mother"s offering was in the same spirit of benevolence - it was a collection of all the volumes of "L"Hermite de
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la Chauss?e d"Antin," with Chalmers"s Astronomical Sermons, and Drake"s two quartos on Shakespeare; joined to a small work of deeper personal interest to me than them all, which was a book of prayers suited to various circ.u.mstances, and printed at her majesty"s own press at Frogmore. In this she had condescended to write my name, accompanied by words of peculiar kindness. My poor ami looked over every t.i.tle-page with delight, feeling as I did myself that the gift was still more meant for him than for me--or rather, doubly, trebly for me in being calculated to be pleasing to him!--he was to me the soul of all pleasure on earth.
What words of kindness do I find, and now for the first time read, in his Diary dated 2nd February! After speaking--h?las, h?las!--"de ses douleurs inouies," (321) he adds, "Quelle ?trange maladie! et quelle position que la mienne! il en est une, peut?tre plus ficheuse encore, c"est celle de ma malheureuse compagne; avec quelle tendresse elle me soigne! et avec quel courage elle supporte ce qu"elle a ? souffrir! Je ne puis que r?p?ter, La volont? de Dieu soit faite!"(322)
Alas! the last words he wrote in February were most melancholy:-- "20 F?vrier, Je sens que je m"afaiblis horriblement--je ne crois pas que ceci puisse ?tre encore bien long.(323) Ch?re f.a.n.n.y, cher Alex! G.o.d bless you! and unite us for ever, Amen!"
Oh my beloved!
Delight, pride, and happiness of my heart! May heaven in its mercy hear this prayer! . . .