SD2576. Bessie Rayner Parkes to George Eliot

Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 346 (in part).

17. W[impole St.]

May 19. [1862] [1]

Darling Polly.

Here is a letter for thee. No more news of the Co. Tomorrow decides whether the Committee accepts her resignation or no. I think Adelaide is determined they shant, tho’ she does’nt say so.

A letter for a French lady in Barbara’s hand came to Langham Place today, with a Hastings postmark, so she must be come.

Yesterday afternoon I spent with Miss Blagden who told me much about Mrs Browning’s death. It was quite unexpected; she had often been more ill; but it is supposed that an abscess broke on the lungs & suffocated her at 4 ½ on the morning of Saturday the 29th of last June. Miss Blagden had left her in the evening, thinking her better.

Robert Browning & the boy spent the ensuing month at Miss Blagden’s villa on the hill above Florence. He could hardly be got to bed at all

<…> [2]

and used to walk about nearly all night on the terrace talking incessantly about his wife. Isa says she cant think now how she ever got thro’ that month with him.

She brought him to England, & he has taken a house for 5 years; she returns to Florence this summer. <***>

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Girton College.

1. Year provided by the author’s reference to EBB’s death of “last June.”

2. A line of text is missing as a result of the author’s signature being excised from the following page.

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