‘I see that you intend to be very severe with Roderick, so much the better. The boy has needed a man’s hand for some years. I’m afraid I have been rather inclined to spoil him myself. All right, then, we’ll leave it at that. I should be obliged if you would let me know from time to time how the work is getting on.’
So saying, Lady Bobbin hurried away to the stables.
‘That’s grand,’ said Bobby, when Paul had told him with a good deal of unseemly merriment, the results of his interview. ‘I’m thankful you were quite firm about the morning work. Actually, of course, what I shall do is to tuck up on this sofa; it doesn’t suit my constitution to be awake before lunch time, while you get on with great-grandmamma’s journal. You might read out any juicy bits that you happen to come across. Then the moment lunch is finished we’ll hack over to Mulberrie Farm. Amabelle says there is a groom who can exercise the horses for us, while we play bridge and gossip with her – I’ll tell him to jolly well tire them out, too. If we get back late we’ll pretend that we stopped at Woodford Manor (that’s Major Stanworth’s) for a game of squash and some tea. Mother will be awfully pleased. Well, thanks to you, Paul, old boy, I’m looking forward to the decentest hols. for years.’ And Bobby flung himself on to the sofa, where he immediately fell asleep.
Meanwhile Paul returned to the journal, and was soon in the middle of that part of it which describes at immense length and in great detail the last weeks and hours of Sir Josiah Bobbin, who died, at the age of sixty-one, evidently from chronic over-eating.
Aug. 6th, 1878.
Spent many happy hours today in the Beloved Sick Room. I occupied some of them by reading aloud from the ‘Idylls of the King’, a work combining such noble sentiments with such an interesting narrative (both of which are, in my opinion, and that of Josiah, a sine qua non of really great poetry) that it is truly pleasant and edifying to read. How different from so much that is written in these days! My Dear One slept most of the time. He still has, I am most thankful to say, a good appetite, although so unwell, and it is by the means of constant feeding with nourishing foods that we are able to maintain his Precious Strength. It is now very late, almost midnight, the hour always consecrated to my journal. Ah! Faithful Page, to thee how many sorrows have I confided, safe in the knowledge that thou at least will never misconstrue my meaning, never repeat my secrets to a hard, uncomprehending world. Tonight I will unburden more of myself to thee, as I sit beside the Beloved Bed. For the day which is just dawning is the anniversary of the death of Dearest Mamma, who passed away when I was but an unthinking babe of four months old. Oh, cruel Fate which robbed nine little ones of their Guiding Star at such an early age, leaving them to reach maturity without a Mother’s care.
At such sacred moments I sometimes think that I myself could have made a truer Wife, a more attentive Mother, if I had been less devoted to my Art. Alas! Can it be so? Would Arthur, George, Edward, Albert, Frederick and William, Alice, Julia, Maud, Eva, Louise and Beatrice have been better men and women, had I given up my writing? The very thought is a knife in my heart! Would darling Josiah have had a more perfect helpmeet but for the cultivation of my Gift? The knife turns! And yet I console myself with remembering that Nature teaches us a different, and, I hope, a truer lesson. The gentle nightingale can ever find time for the duties of her home in the intervals of charming the woodlands with her silvery note; the merry lark, soaring above the cornfields, the perky robin hopping among the evergreens, each has its little song to sing, yet is not therefore a neglectful Mother! And surely it has ever been thus with me? Surely I have no cause for self-reproach on that dread score? I know that I have not, otherwise how could I survive another moment at such a melancholy time? Sometimes it comes upon me with a fearful shudder that I am soon to be left a Widow. Widow! Hateful word, how could these fingers fashion thee? Surely I must be spared that unbearable, that fatal blow awhile? And yet I saw in the doctor’s eye today a look of cruel foreboding as he said: ‘Give Sir Josiah anything he likes to eat, we must not cross him now.’ That word ‘now’, I shuddered as I heard it, nor dared to ask its meaning.
Ah! Leave, my darling, leave me not awhile,
Lonely upon this planet sere and grey;
Spare poor my heart such melancholy trial,
Lest frail my courage faint and fade away.
Forget that thou art ill and tired of woe,
Think rather of the day when first we met.
Forget the hateful burdens here below,
Sorrow, ingratitude and loss, forget!
Think only, love, upon our wedding day,
The lilies and the sunshine and the bells;
Of how, the service o’er, we drove away
To our blest honeymoon at Tunbridge Wells.
Think of our life together all these years,
The joys we’ve shared, the sorrows we have known;
The laughter of our children, and their tears,
The happiness of duty bravely done.
But if with longing thou art overcome
To leave forthwith this sad and tearful earth,
E’en should my heart with poignant grief be numb,
It yet would not begrudge thee
