‘Dearest Mr. Rogers,—Thank you for your letter to my boy—he asked leave to write to some who would be “really sorry” and I gave him your name and my sister Georgiana’s.1
‘I still feel stunned by this sudden blow. The accident happened here, and I have been sheltered here ever since, and do not leave till Thursday, when my fair young thing will be laid in the grave. The room here, where he died (and which was the first I entered)—the room where there was so much hurry and agony, and then such dismal silence and darkness—is empty and open again, and the little decorated coffin is lying at his father’s house (about two miles off)—alone; for Mr. Norton is gone to Lord Grantley’s (Grantley Hall) till to-morrow, which is fixed for the funeral.2
‘He died conscious—he prayed, and asked Norton to pray; he asked for me twice; he did not fear to die, and he bore the dreadful spasms of pain with a degree of courage which the doctor says he has rarely seen in so young a child. He had every attention and kindness which could be shown, and every comfort which was needed. He was kept here, not at first from any apprehension of danger, but because in his father’s house
1 Jane Georgiana, the youngest sister of Mrs. Norton, was Queen of Beauty at the Eglintoun tournament in 1839. She married, on the 10th of June, 1830, Lord Seymour, afterwards twelfth Duke of Somerset. She died on the 14th of December, 1884. 2 Mrs. Norton’s third son, William Charles Chapple, was born on the a6th of August, 1833, and died on the 12th of September, 1842. |
| 294 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
‘Meanwhile he has at least allowed me to take
Brin with me to London for a few days before they
return to
| MRS. NORTON | 295 |
‘If you are in town, I will ask you to let my boy come to you some one morning: he is very eager about it. Poor little fellow! he thinks, having seen his father and me weeping together, all is once more peace and home. He made me write out a list of his relations, and of Brinsley and Georgie’s children. He is full of eager anticipation to make friends of all that belong to me. He was dreadfully overcome at first, and had an hysteric fit when he saw his brother dead; but at his age (eleven next November), and with his buoyant temper, sorrow must be very temporary. My other boy’s forethought, tenderness, and precocious good sense will, if God spares him, be the blessing of my life. He understands, by intuition, all I feel, and all that ought to be. He soothes his father, and watches me as if I, not he, was the helpless one; and God knows I am helpless! but my child is out of the storm—he is in heaven: too young to have offended, he is with those whose “angels do always behold the face of our Father”!
‘I will write to you again; good and kind you have always been to me—God bless you. I shall have left this on Thursday morning.
