4308. EBB to Arabella Moulton-Barrett
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 8–11.
43. Bocca di Leone.
Tuesday. [4 January 1859] [1]
My beloved Arabel, I write to you on the early days of the year on a disagreeable subject. You will have received another letter from me full of thoughts & loves– [2] May God bless you, my dearest—& all of you.
But here is a thing. I get this morning a letter from Wilson of a most extraordinary kind. She has received one from her sister, [3] in which this singular passage occurs—after speaking of having taken Orestes to your house in London .....
“I did hear something there, dear Bessie, I did not like much. Mrs Crispin [4] did not quite speak out, but I could understand as much that Mrs Browning’s maid was a very bad woman & that they all were very much deceived in her– Mrs Robinson [5] said she would write to you, but Mrs Crispin said they will be sure to find her out. But I hope she has been so– I would rather it came from her than me– But you that has a husband living with her ought to know.”
On which text Wilson writes me a letter poor thing, as if she were frantic with jealousy & fear. She says—“Ferdinando is too weak to be near such a woman:——and one thing I have decided upon, that is to be with him in some way: he is a kind husband & an affectionate father, at the same time a bad woman can do much harm, and as I have made myself an Italian I will be one, & nurse no more now– Dear Mrs Browning your kindness in all my unfortunate circumstances has been great, & your patience more than I can speak of, that I would not wish to upset your house again, but I know you will both think with me, for the sake of my husband children & myself it is right we should be together. I told you before you left, I wished to be with my husband, but you said you had promised Anunziata, so I said no more. Now &c &c &c”–——
Arabel, set your good sense to work & try to ferret me out the rights & wrongs of the case as far as Crispin is concerned. As Ferdinando was not in France at all, it cant be in relation to him that poor Annunziata is accused: and certainly I could’nt get her out of the house scarcely, for necessary exercise, at that time. She may be a black devil under her white skin—such things may be & have been—but the skin is white: she does a great deal of work, she is an excellent servant as far as service goes: I have not a fault to find with her. My sense of justice therefore is a good deal outraged by all these accusations– And though, as a woman, I have a profound pity for my poor dear Wilson who seems to me stark staring mad with fright, I do, as a tolerably sensible woman, see the absurdity of agreeing to knit her, away from her children, in an infrangible bond with Ferdinando .. agreeing to carry them about with us under every condition of mind & body, & funds, whether we go to Ægypt or to England .. she confined every now & then, now in London & now in Alexandria, .. & the babies left to sprout as they may, in different quarters– And if she gets her sister out to Florence to take care of them, why this said sister is to be taken care of & provided for too!—that’s the idea– And I distrust the sister! much, much. Write & advise me, my darling,—for I am thoroughly vexed. Wilson might have waited till our return to Florence at least—— And yet, I dont blame her—she’s a woman & jealous, & mad– Observe, she has not a single shadow of a proof against Annunciata– Not a shadow. And for me to send away Annunciata like a convicted criminal, upon the present non-evidence, would be a worse action than any suspected of others–
I had a very kind letter the other day from Amelia & Harry, [6] & answered it. I have had no letter from either Arabel or Henrietta this year!—— Peni & I had our Christmas dinner alone, Robert being dragged away by the hair of his head to dine with the Cartwrights & meet Odo Russell. We had a small crush in this room last week, which exhausted me rather, & I have been refreshing myself with Sir Edward Lytton’s “What will he do with it?” [7] But he does not do much with it, after all. I want & long to hear of you, darling Arabel, & how your glands are, & that they have not suffered by your journey to Wales– [8] Write & tell me how you all have been bearing yourselves this Christmas—I have prayed God for you, dearest Things–
Did you get no invitation from the sculptor Munro about Pen’s bust, [9] before you left London?—— We have not heard, & we were promised a photograph before now. On new year’s day I had from Mr Eckley the most exquisite basket of flowers ever seen .. roses white & red .. every sort of beautiful flower .. creepers twined round the handle!—— It might have come from the spiritual world, for the beauty of it. But it did’nt, Arabel: it is half faded already–
I sent the whole of Aurora Leigh to London by a Queen’s messenger two days since, the whole except the two last books, carefully corrected, for the new edition.
My darling Pen has had a horrible cold, & a worse cough than I ever heard from him, so that we have kept him in the house these three days. He is greatly better, I thank God, this morning, & scarcely coughs at all. The only way is to shut up a cough & stifle it, so as to prevent its becoming a habit– This misfortune happened through his heating himself by running with his hoop in the sun & then being caught by a cold air– I have clothed him in a fine woollen waistcoat which he consents to wear next his skin– I get like Wilson, frantic with fear .. when anything’s the matter with that child.
Poor darling, he called himself yesterday, “the most unfortunate person in the world.” And why, said I– “Because my balloon broke— and then .. other sorrows.” When I came to enquire into the other sorrows, they were analyzed into his being kept away from his friends & their games on the Pincio– Afterwards a gleam of comfort came, & he volunteered a confession with his feet in warm water at night—that he was rather more happy on the whole, when he was ill than when he was well—“You are all so tender to me, dear mama.” Confess Arabel, that he is a winning child, & that there’s some excuse for over-loving him.
In reading the account of Dantes at the Chateau d’If (see Monte Cristo) his voice gave way in sobs,—& when the chapter was over, he gravely said .. “Do you mean to tell me that that boy stays all his life in the prison?——” I said it would spoil the pleasure of reading the book, if I told him—“Oh no, tell me; it will make me more happy.” He could’nt bear to consider it possible, the endless misery of “that boy.”
You are not to think he is making me anxious now– He only coughs now & then, & slept without interruption all last night. We have been administering homœopathic globules .. aco<n>ite & Bryonia <alter>natively, [10] with striking effect—& he has had no feverishness at all– In another day or so, we shall let him out to his games– The weather is splendid for sun, but there’s a very cold air, & I have to keep myself well housed. The climate however is undeniably beyond that of Florence, for me. Robert is very well. He walks out regularly before breakfast with Mr Eckley, & finds that he is the better for it in all ways,—especially as to appetite– He is in by eight, in time to hear Pen’s music, which prospers wonderfully.
I like Mr Motley here—the American historian of the Dutch republics. [11] I like several people. You wont like this letter .. which is written at full gallop, leaping the fences. Best love to all my dearests.
Write— Your own very own Ba.
Publication: EBB-AB, II, 385–388.
Manuscript: Gordon E. Moulton-Barrett.
1. Date provided by EBB’s mention of sending “Aurora Leigh to London … two days since.” In RB’s part of letter 4305, dated [2 January 1859], he remarked that they had “just sent off a corrected ‘Aurora Leigh.’”
2. Letter 4297, written on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
3. Presumably Ellen Wilson, to whom RB had transferred money for the care of the Romagnolis’ son Orestes (see letter 4268).
4. Arabella’s lady’s maid (see letter 4202, note 3).
5. i.e., Mary (“Minny”) Robinson (see letter 2717, note 10).
6. Henry Moulton-Barrett and his wife, Sophia Amelia (née Holland).
8. On Christmas Eve, Arabella had travelled to Bryngwyn, Charles John’s leased estate in Wales, in the company of George Moulton-Barrett and Surtees Cook (see Surtees, 24 December 1858).
11. John Lothrop Motley (1814–77), author of The Rise of the Dutch Republic (New York, 1856); see letter 4297, note 4.
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