THE STATE PENSION
Earlier in this book we told how Byron had abstained from dedicating
_Childe Harold_ to 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, the
_Country 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.”
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.”
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.
[Illustration: 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 as an 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
edit _Finden’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
entitled _A 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 when those 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
of _Pickwick 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 the _Pickwick
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 which
_Boz_ had 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 studies _Pickwick_ on
the bench whilst the jury are deliberating. _Do_ take 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 illness
of 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 finances alarmingly 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 him no pleasure; and
if any one else is so kind as to offer to read to him, _that_ does
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 on Miss Mitford’s mind;
indeed she never forgot the incident, and when, many years
afterwards, she was compiling her _Recollections_ it 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 the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ who 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 round of 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 to _him_. 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 for my 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.”