I must cease immediate — I am too choked. Italy! Our native haunts, our soft lawns mean nothing to you, tho’ they enfold your truest heart –
A.C.
May 25th, ’43.
Dear William, –
You profess love to me, but this prisoner is yet unlocked. My cold has worsened — I am hoarse — perhaps sweet Charlie will have no mother to caress him but a ruddy nurse only — do I frighten you?
Forgive me. I am well, hale as you are. But I am still Confined. My cold has been chased off by the caudle, or by the evacuations Dr Mackernes did me last week. You say the seal upon my letter to you was broke. I give my bundles to a dull-witted maid — she dusts my room, no other — who is not the prying kind. But mayhap another of the great family has smelt a plot and means to rub cash from me. Once Wall did ask who Mr W. S. was and I told her — ’twas a solicitor of my brother’s affairs in Barbados, that lives in London. But I blushed. I did not tell you earlier, I was too fearful what you might think. I cannot tell of Wall’s thoughts — she has no features to speak of, she is scribbled in chalk. She is a broiling hen.
I am to remain in this wretched room another fortnight. Why, I cannot rightly say. The doctor will have it. The orchard blossoms are all dashed, I hear, in the nipping gales of last week. How I miss their sweet fragrance, tho’ the earliest mornings at my chink are sweeter than any dream of paradise. The lawn is greener sure, in its dewy state. I wish the stables were farther off: their odours mingle if the wind is southerly. The woods are verdant now. I saw the vixen again, she is not yet caught. A redbreast took pity on me and perched at the sill, and warbled his tiny heart near to bursting — this only yesterday. I have put my rose oils on the hinges, and the shutter is silent. But you are not come. All about me the house rumbles like a muffled drum. No, it is mostly shut from me, the noise. Silent as the Stygian pool. I read little now. I am moroser. Why do I not fade away, like the night shadows in the woods? I am hearty well — in body. This gloomy room frets out of me any inkling of comfort. I know every inch of the stucco: it goes about and about my head. It is old fashion, that makes it more insupportable — my head aches from it. All shields, warlike in a lady’s room. I stitch wearily, tho’ my boldest yet: the Four Seasons, at my Lord’s request, for his settee in the Dressing Room, that is worn black & greasy from his too much sitting. ’Tis all husbandry, took straight out the freshest pattern book — got from Mrs Price — but so slow do I dip and tug that the wretched ploughman must eternally plod, it seems, ’pon my lap — ’till either he or his maker drop. I have sent for new silk for the bed. The old is too blue. I am sick of the oils — but for one — a Fête-Champêtre — for Fools — they make merry above my canapé — I dance with them in the gloom.
Take the note enclosed to Hapgood’s in the Strand and buy a waistcoat, if as you say yours is threadbare. Don’t mention who you are. I like crimson sattin the best, tho’ you might not favour me with a view of it. I have sent invitations for the Christening. You are bound to it — the Squire, wretched man, will not dare keep you away, he don’t care for bad form. Do not come too showy. Dress your hair careful, in a half-bob. Don’t wink at me.
You are bound to it, William.
I don’t care if they read this. Do what they will.
Here is half your ribband.
Lady Oxford was here. She is out of mourning. I have no other news.
I am,
yr forlorn,
A.C.
June 5th.
Dearest W.,–
Send no more post here. I smell a plot, or a discovery. Each week they lengthen my confinement — I cannot see or know why. Dr Mackernes I think to be in on it. He would purge his liver for a fee. He has bled me thrice since we last wrote — I feel weak and dismal — Mrs Danvers they evacuated till she was a husk, for her distraction after her delivery. I shall burst in this confine. Likewise, and for this reason, I would wish our dear sweet little baby unwrapped of his swaddling, but Nurse Fieldhouse will not hear of it — calls it new-fangled liberties — so he may only wave his arms about from yesterday. I held his hand — ’tis like ivory, only warm — his arteries beat with our blood in the wrist — he does just exist but already how favourable I feel towards him, more than to other little creatures I have encountered, such as the daughter of Mrs Danvers, whom I felt nothing for at Christmas.
I tell you this that you might beat with a fatherly devotion.
I would wish my ink watered — my glass is empty, I have run out of sand also — but I fear any interruption — I will blow on this till it not blot and I have the seal-wax from this morning — shall hand it to the maid with a coin that she be persuaded to give it to the black boy — he combs my Pekes but they will not let him in — they will never think to address their suspicions to him. Before it was Hodgetts the groom of chambers ’twas handed to by the maid — she is called Hambling — she is devoted to me and has too dull wits for intrigue, but Hodgetts wears gold garters and is insufferably proud — he has ambitions — Hambling has a wart the size of a guinea upon her forehead, but Hodgetts has told Wall that Bint has taken a great fancy to her, for otherwise she is shapely — Wall told me, and I told her I did not care if they married, or did not, I was so weary. Hambling must tell the black boy to conceal it — I have named him Scipio, and then again Leeward, for Scipio is my husband’s stallion — Leeward is then to give it to Mabberley — he being the hoary-headed gardener brought with me from Stagley, who cut roses for me when I was merely babbling, twenty year past, kind old soul — he will hang for me if I wished it. He takes it to the chaise. There — I have it in a nutshell they shall never crack.
Address your letters to Elijah Mabberley, of Maddle Lane.
I write in haste, lest you write too quick again (tho’ that be not likely) — your resumption of the Latin next month fills me with cheer and expectation my poor vessel of a heart can hardly bear — how each day drags itself to the moon — I spin patience with ropes of sand — there! I have blotted with my tears — imagine how I crouch trembling at every noise and knock — no great house has more quivering a caged bird. I have my fan ready to spread upon my desk, for the air lies like treacle and this early heat would have me faint — but my fan is as well my cunning concealer, it is so large when spread, and the herons painted upon it fly.
I would have you lie between me on the instant, but I must long more. Your expressions of affection were received as mine were — O ill-defined joys, that groan as they are cherished, and strew boughs of blossom as they sting our feet with longing!
I am,
ever yours –
A.C.
I plant this finger upon thy lips, and write my love upon them.
June 20th, ’43.
Dearest William, –
I am joyous our plot passed off without mishap, and our love spun itself happily over the distance, so strewn with traps and spies. I hope you are burning the letters. Leeward conducted himself with propriety — he is told to speak nothing of this task — lest he feel the deck beneath him that returns him to sugar-cane. Hambling told me he flinched at that, as at a whipping — he has welts upon his back, she says, from the smart of a cart-whip (not Aunt Eliza’s, I think). If only all our servants were so, and in no need of wages, that make them so hard on us, and intrusive.
The danger is in the passing of the letter from Mabberley to the boy, but he walks the Pekes, and Mabberley clips a great laurel that utterly conceals him from the house, that is on the way. If you had come before, we had no need of this.
Your poem I have read a hundred times, by night, and by the window at dawn, as I feel the perfumed air of morning upon my cheek. I have been in here near three months — I have wept to be released — my husband is officious on my health, speaks highly of Dr Mackernes, and has not fiddled my buttons. I do feel weak, and nauseous, but ’tis the heat. Nurse Fieldhouse has been severe on the rocker for standing at my door (we are opposite to the nursery) when she oped it. Perhaps my thin, pale countenance persuades them I am to be shut from ills. I flush so easily. I am wan only from your absence. They anger me. I would like to beat them all with my cane — they gave me a cane to walk from bed to canapé — I have only one use for it, if it were to come to that.