Thursday, December 17, 1835

 1835

December

Thursday 17

8 10/..

11 1/2

No kiss.  A little headache and feel bilious; a little bowel complaint also.

Very fine morning, F 38° at 8 1/4 a.m. and a blackbird in full song in the garden –

Went down to breakfast at 8 1/4 – Mr. Jubb here at 9 – My aunt very poorly – not to get up today – Jane and John better and Sarah the kitchen maid (sent home to Halifax yesterday afternoon) better this morning – The nurse for Jane, I persuaded Marian to send to Mr. Jubb for last night, at liberty, and will come this morning – Finished my breakfast after Mr. Jubb went away –

About 11, note from Mr. Musgrave saying he would come tomorrow, but if my aunt would be inconvenienced by delay, he would come at 3 p.m. today – and another printed note from Mr. Musgrave soliciting my subscription for the Irish clergy, saying in manuscript at the bottom of the printing that he had already gotten £150 – The servant waited and I wrote back in answer to ‘the Reverend Charles Musgrave, Vicarage’ Shibden Hall, Thursday, 17 December 1835.

‘Dear sir

If it will not be any very great inconvenience to you to come this afternoon, it will be a satisfaction to me – My aunt is not up, nor likely to be got up today – She may rally a little; but your hopes are not sanguine –

Believe me, dear sir, very truly yours,

A Lister’

Then 10 minutes with my aunt while she sat up in bed and took a little brandy and water and parkin –

Then wrote the following, with check enclosed for George to take to the bank – ‘Shibden Hall,

‘Thursday, 17 December 1835

Gentlemen,

I shall be much obliged to you to send back by my servant, as by check enclosed, £50 ten sovereigns the rest in your own notes –

I am, gentlemen etc. etc. etc.,

A Lister’ –

to ‘the Gentlemen of the Yorkshire District Bank, Halifax’

Had just written the above of today at 12 5/.. – Then out till 2 3/4 with Robert Mann and company, who had finished about the pond before dinner and been at the hill – Making on this and upper side of the Cascade bridge – Looked about while they dined – Walked down to the bottom of the walk and back – Then stood over the men.  Mark helping them occasionally, the Northgate soil carts today, the last day till further orders – Told Mr. Husband last night to stop them – He said they would not be wanted at Northgate till April –

Came in at 2 3/4 – Dressed – Mr. Musgrave here soon after 3 – I kept him waiting 10 minutes – Sent Ann to him in the drawing room where I found also my father and Marian with him – We all went upstairs to my aunt’s room as immediately as possible, and Mr. Musgrave administered the sacrament to my aunt in bed, and Ann and my father and Marian and myself and Oddy and Mary (Rhodes) and George – My aunt lifted herself up in bed – but the fluttering at her chest no better, and she could not speak more than a word or two even afterwards when Mr. Musgrave wished her good bye, ‘God bless you, Madam’, and said he would call again to see her in a day or 2 – He behaved very kindly and properly –

I said my father would feel cold and got Marian to take him downstairs immediately that the service was over – I kept Ann and we each gave him £5 towards the relief of the Irish protestant clergy; and I gave him for such charity as he thought best one sovereign for my aunt and one for myself on the sacrament account as usual – He said on going away he would write and inform Ann if any  observed (fatal) change took place in Mr. John Edwards – He was here about 3/4 hour from the time of his arrival –

I sat talking to Ann in the blue room, then till 5 20/..(in my study).  Wrote the last 18 lines of today –

Then till 5 55/.., wrote 2 pages to Mariana, saying what a sick house we have, sorry it is a fortnight since my receiving her letter etc. . . . . . .

‘The kitchen maid was sent home ill yesterday – the upper  housemaid is confined to her bed – the cook is poorly – my aunt’s maid is not quite well – Ann’s and my temporary one is on foot and that is all, and our footman is sent into saddle room with my farming man to nurse him for fear of the spread of infection in the house (he the footman ill from attending his brother, who died of natural smallpox) –

And what makes all this more distressing, my aunt has not been able to leave her bed today, and I fear there is little prospect of her rallying – We have a house of melancholy – We have just had our vicar, Mr. Musgrave, administering the sacrament at my aunt’s bedside – I fear she cannot see over Christmas – Should this term be beyond her reach, ‘how short a while she will have survived poor Mrs. Norcliffe! She sinks so gradually, she may linger longer than it seems reasonable to expect – but my own mind is prepared –

‘Mary! my heart is very heavy – God bless you! 

Believe me always very especially and affectionately yours,

A L-’ –

Sent off  by George this evening my letter to ‘Mrs. Lawton, Lawton Hall, Cheshire’ –

Dinner at 6 1/4 –

Went up to my aunt, but she seemed asleep (in bed), so crept quietly away – Coffee – 3/4 hour with my father and Marian –

Copied a little of Mr. Samuel Freeman’s upper Place quarry-opening account –

3/4 hour with my aunt till 10 40/.. – Mixed her up her aperient powder (Mrs. Barlow’s recommendation in Paris), equal parts carbonate of magnesia, cream of tartar, and flower of brimstone – She spoke better and cheerfully and is certainly better tonight – She may rally again? –

Fine morning till about 11 – Afterwards, damp and thick, and a little drizzling rain from about noon, more or less, the rest of the day – F 44° and fair now at 10 50/.. p.m.

 

WYAS Finding Number SH:7/ML/E/18/0146