IN TIME OF NEED
"The grave is heaven's golden gate,
And rich and poor around it wait."--BLAKE.
It was deemed undesirable for Bessie to remain at Chichester during the
sad week that followed the death of her father. She went to her elder
sister, Mary, the beloved Mary of her youth, now the mother of a family
and head of a large household.
She wrote with her own hand a short note to one of the sisters at the
palace, which reassured them as to her condition.
MILTON HILL, _28th March 1870_.
MY DEAR SARAH--Thank you for all your letters. As you say, all the
preparations must be painful, but I am very thankful to hear you
and Nora are pretty well. You know without my telling you so, how
very much you are in my thoughts. I hope to come back Tuesday or
Wednesday, but Mary wants me to stay. Is it so, that we need not go
till after Easter? I should like to know, because of what I may
have to do about my own things. I think the appointment seems very
good. As for me I am rather better to-day, having slept better two
nights; but it is difficult to me as yet to do things, I have so
little energy or interest in anything. I will write again about my
coming. Mary is really pretty well I think, the last day or two
have been much pleasanter. Love to you all from your loving sister
BESSIE.
She returned to the palace but did not stay long, and spent the greater
part of the two months of preparation for leaving Chichester with her
sister, Mrs. Woods. She went, however, to her old home in April, and
left it finally with her brother and two unmarried sisters on the 21st
of April 1870.
Loving words greeted them on the day of their departure. "Wherever we
are," wrote one of the sisters, "we shall all know that we are thinking
of each other."
The house in Queen Anne Street was let at this time; two sisters went to
St. Leonards, but Bessie, with her faithful maid, took the much shorter
and easier journey to Slinfold Rectory, near Horsham, the home of her
sister Lucy, Mrs. Sutton.
She was sad and in very feeble health. All the future seemed dark and
uncertain; she could make no plans, she could not look forward. At such
a time the tender and loving care of Mr. and Mrs. Sutton were very
precious to her. Insensibly, almost unconsciously, she was helped by the
numerous children around her. Living in their midst she learnt to know
them intimately, and they cheered her and amused her. The little boys
had quaint ways and odd sayings, and they made her forget herself and
listen to them and wonder at them. The eldest girl, also a Lucy, had
always been a pet, and now became very dear to her. From Slinfold she
went to her sister Fanny, Mrs. Casson, at Torquay, and there found
another kind brother-in-law, another large family of nephews and nieces,
all ready to love and to wait upon the dear "Aunt Bessie." Four homes,
in all of which she was a welcome and honoured guest, were thus open to
her. Hitherto her time had been divided between London and Chichester.
She had not allowed herself the luxury of visits to married sisters, and
had only seen them and their children on the occasion of their visits to
the palace or London. Now she began to be intimate with them, to be
interested in the character and dispositions of the young people, and to
enjoy the family life of which one and all helped to make her feel she
was a member.
Meantime old and dear friends gathered around her and sought to comfort
and encourage her. She preserved many letters which she prized and had
found helpful. One of the first to speak was the Rev. H. Browne, who
held the living of Pevensey. He was one of the Bishop's chaplains, the
author of _Ordo Saeclorum_, a student of German theology, and, that which
most attracted Bessie, he was a very good reader, and at Chichester had
often read aloud Shakespere's plays to the _sisterhood_. Mr. Browne now
was the first to strike a note to which she could respond:
He rests from his labours and his works do follow him. Yours
remain. It is needless for me to say it, for you must all know it
better than I, he counted it among his mercies that a work had been
raised up for you, which when father and mother were gone would be
to you the work and the blessing of your life. He evidently
acknowledged this as God's calling to you, and as one of the
thoughts in which he was greatly comforted in looking forward upon
your future life.
Many other writers dwelt upon the unsparing labour and self-denying zeal
of her father, and all recognised that she, the daughter so near his
heart and always the object of his most tender love and watchful care,
must be the one most deeply stricken by the pain of separation.
"To you, I imagine, the blow will come heaviest," wrote Mrs. Powell; and
this sentiment is repeated in almost every letter.
A letter from the Secretary of her own Association, informing her of a
vote of condolence passed by the Committee, begins, oddly enough, with
"I have the _pleasure_ to inform you,"
The blind workmen and workwomen did their best to express their regret
at the death of "his lordship the Bishop," and a note is enclosed to her
by the Rev. B. Hayley, written by a poor fellow in the Chichester Union,
"just to show what the poor, the very poorest in the diocese, think of
your dear father."
The Rev. Dr. Swainson, Canon of Chichester, now Master of Christ's
College, Cambridge, heard that Bessie's grief was heightened by the fact
that she had spent the last fortnight before her father's death in
London, engrossed by the work of the Deputation to Lord de Grey. His
letter of sympathy and consolation may be as helpful to others as it was
to her, and it is therefore inserted unabridged.
SPRINGFIELD, NEWNHAM, CAMBRIDGE,
_30th March 1870_.
MY DEAR MISS GILBERT--I hope you will permit me to write you a few
lines on the subject which I hear from many quarters has caused you
much additional sorrow in regard to the death of our dear father in
God. I mean your absence from Chichester during the last fortnight
of his life. I really do not know that you should regret it:
because it was really of God's appointment: you were engaged over
your work for Him: your sisters over their work for Him: your dear
father over his work for Him: each and all to the best of your
powers, and why should you repine if it pleased God to remove him
so quietly, so gently, so lovingly, without telling you beforehand
that He was going thus to take him? May you not rejoice rather that
his last days of consciousness were filled with thoughts that you
were able to go on with that work in which he took so deep an
interest, that some have thought that the best memorial of the love
of the diocese to him would be an effort to strengthen your hands
in that work? Of course I have often thought of the way in which my
dearest father and dearest mother were taken away from me. I was
absent from both: but I could not regret my absence. Mrs. Swainson
was present at the removal of both her parents: but was not all
this of God's appointment? When we ask Him to guide us day by day,
may we not leave it to Him how He guides us? I am sure you will
excuse me writing thus: the loss is indescribable, the centre of
your earthly affections removed: on this I need not speak. But I
feel sure that you need not and you should not take any blame to
yourself, because your work carried you away at the time when God,
who so arranged it, was pleased to call your father home.--Believe
me to be, my dear Miss Gilbert, ever yours very truly, C. A.
SWAINSON.
The Bishop of Rochester wrote, "His course, ever since he has been a
bishop, has been so straightforward, so true, that he has won
everybody's admiration and respect."
These and other tributes Bessie preserved and treasured. They helped
her, and after a time they comforted her. In May we have one of the
first letters written by her own hand, and speaking of her own feelings.
It is addressed to a dear friend of the early Oxford days.
SLINFOLD RECTORY, HORSHAM, _1st May 1870_.
MY DEAR MRS. BURROWES--I was very grateful for your most kind
affectionate letter, although I have not written to tell you so.
For some time I really could hardly do anything. No loss in the
world could be what this loss is to me. I am always wanting him,
always missing him, still I am now better able to feel the
blessedness for him, and also better able to think of his being
spared suffering and infirmity, which would probably have
increased; and yet in spite of all this I often cannot help feeling
how my heart would rebound with life if I could know that he could
be here again with us. But I long for the hope of being with him to
grow stronger and stronger, so that it may be more and more a
living power within me, and a real comfort. I am much better and
stronger than I was; but cannot say much for my powers of walking.
I cannot say that I take much interest in things yet, and am often
oppressed with a feeling of the dreary length of the days without
seeing him or hearing anything about him; but as you so kindly say
in your letter I shall hope, when able to do so, to work better
than I have done if God will grant me help to strengthen me for
this work. I did go up from hence to London for the day for our May
Committee, and am very glad I did so, and made a beginning of
taking up the work again. I have also done a little towards it in
other ways, but just now my own nice maid is having a little
holiday, and instead Mrs. Gadney is with me; she cannot write much,
while I am not up to much business yet. Lucy, I am sure, would send
you her love, but I am writing in my room. She would have written
to you, but that I said I would do so myself, as I had intended for
some time to write and thank you for your very affectionate
letter.... Believe me, my dear Mrs. Burrowes, yours affectionately,
BESSIE GILBERT.
Miss Mackenzie, sister of Bishop Mackenzie, wrote:
I shall never forget his kind fatherliness and his beautiful
courtesy and his loving thoughtfulness for every one. What a
comfort it is to have all that to look back upon, but now whilst it
is all so fresh your hearts must bleed. Dear Bessie, I am so
thankful you have your work, your calling, your vocation to attend
to, and in trying to alleviate the troubles of others, as you have
always done, you will find the best relief to your own sorrow.
The letters from those she loved, whilst full of sympathy, also dwelt
upon the call and claim of duty, in the fulfilment of which Bessie could
alone find peace. She struggled bravely to respond, but the task before
her was more difficult than any that she had yet accomplished; and
there was no renewal of physical power, even when she began to recover
from the shock of her great sorrow. She paid many visits with her
sisters, and returned to Queen Anne Street in August 1871. The change in
her health was at that time painfully evident to her friends in London.
She moved slowly, with difficulty, and was easily exhausted by slight
fatigue. Still she resumed her work for the blind, as we find by a
letter from the Dean of Westminster [Dean Stanley] written on the 22d of
June 1871. He informs her that he will have much pleasure in acceding to
her request to preach on behalf of the Association for the Blind on
Sunday morning, 23d July, at Whitehall.
In reply to an appeal to Mr. Ruskin, made somewhat later, she received
the following characteristic answer:
DENMARK HILL, S.E., _2d September 1871_.
MADAM--I am obliged by your letter, and I deeply sympathise with
all the objects of the Institution over which you preside. But one
of my main principles of work is that every one must do their best
and spend their all in their own work, and mine is with a much
lower race of sufferers than you plead for--with those who "have
eyes and see not."--I am, madam, your faithful servant, J. RUSKIN.
The Lady President of the Association for Promoting the Welfare of
the Blind.
In the autumn of 1871 Bessie joined a great gathering of the Gilbert
family at Heversham for the celebration of the marriage of the rector,
their youngest brother, the "Tom" of early days. She returned to spend
a few months only in Queen Anne Street, for she and two sisters had
taken a house in Stanhope Place, Hyde Park, which was to be their future
home.
The Queen Anne Street house was associated in many ways with Bessie's
life and work in London, with the visits to her of the blind workpeople,
with the early days of the Association, with the growth and development
of the objects that had engrossed her life. Perhaps it was dearer to her
than either the Oxford or the Chichester home. Certainly the wrench of
separation was more painful than any previous one had been; and she had
less hope and energy for the unknown future that was before her.
When the change of house had been accomplished she paid a visit to Mrs.
Bowles, at Milton Hill, but this did little to restore her exhausted
energy. During May and June 1872 there was a marked deterioration in her
condition; she walked with greater difficulty, could not rise from a
chair without assistance, and before the end of June had to be carried
up and down stairs. She went to church for the last time early in June,
driving to All Saints, Norfolk Square, and walking home.
Greatly alarmed at her condition, the family now turned in many
directions for the help and advice of eminent medical men. Sir William
Jenner took perhaps the most hopeful view. He thought it not impossible
that the nerves of motion might regain power, and prescribed in the
meantime "the life of a cabbage." Dr. Little was never sanguine. Dr.
Hughlings Jackson and Dr. Hawkesley held out but little hope of
improvement. All agreed that she must rest, vegetate, lead the life of
an invalid.
When the prospect of the future really dawned upon her, who can wonder
that she found submission, acquiescence, exceedingly hard. "My whole
being revolts at the very idea," she said one day.
On another occasion, with a part humorous, part pathetic expression, she
exclaimed, "The change is great and," after a pause, "not pleasant." But
in later years, after long and patient suffering, she was able to say,
"Many have a heavier cross."
She announced by letter to the present writer the verdict of her
physicians, adding the pathetic words, "Love me to the end."