Part 47 (2/2)
”At four o'clock in the , Henry went to fetch the anaesthetist and in his absence Willialimpse of a different world: if PAIN is evil, then it was hell; if not, I expect I got nearer Heaven than I have ever been before
”I saw Dr Bailey at the foot of the bed, with a bag in his hand, and Charty's outline against the la caht beating of carpets sounded in my brain and I knew no more
”When I ca, I saw Charty looking at e voice:
”'I can't have any , you won't have any more' (SILENCE)
”MARGOT: 'But you don't ly): 'Go to sleep, dearest'
”I was so dazed by chloroform that I could hardly speak Later on the nurse told ht to be grateful for being spared, as I had had a very dangerous confinement
”When Sir John Willia my temperature was normal, he said fervently:
”'Thank you, Mrs Asquith'
”I was too weak and uncomfortable to realise all that had happened; and what I suffered from the smallest noise I can hardly describe I would watch nurse slowly approaching and burst into a perspiration when her cotton dress crinkled against the chintz of my bed I shi+vered with fear when the blinds were drawn up or the shutters unfastened; and any onea tu a newspaper would bring tears into my eyes”
In connection hat I have quoted out of my diary here it is not inappropriate to add that I lost nant and secret griefs have no place on the high-road of life; but, just as Henry and I will stand soers, so he and I in unobserved otten sorrow
Out of the many letters which I received, this from our intimate and affectionate friend, Lord Haldane, was the one I liked best:
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I cannot easily tell you howto you this afternoon, by what I saw and what you toldtriuth that is given at such ti oneself that the thing is not that IS; but fro of one step onwards It is the quality we touch--it may be but for a moment--not the quantity we have, that counts ”All I could never be, all that was lost in me is yet there--in His hand who planned the perfect whole” That hat Browning saw vividly when he wrote his Rabbi Ben Ezra You have lost a great joy But in the deepening and strengthening the love you two have for each other you have gained what is rarer and better; it is orth the pain and grief--the grief you have borne in coer and freer
We all of us are parting fro, but I do not feel any loss that is not coain, and I do not think that you do either Anything that detaches one, that makes one turn fros with it new strength and new intensity of interest I have no fear for you when I see what is absolutely and unht as I saw it this afternoon I went aith strengthened faith in what huhest and best lie before you both
Your affec friend,
R B HALDANE
I was gradually recovering ht, Sir John Williams and Henry ca and I was told that I should have to lie onfrom phlebitis; but I was too unhappy and disappointed to mind It was then that my doctor, Sir John Williams, became my friend as well as my nurse, and his nobility of character made him a powerful influence in my life
To return to reat interest inletter She sent ers constantly to ask after me and I answered her myself once, in pencil, when Henry was at the Ho as usual on my bed, my mind a blank, when Sir William Harcourt's card was sent up to e form
I had seen most of : Mr Gladstone, Lord Haldane, Mr Birrell, Lord Spencer, Lord Rosebery, the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Morley, Arthur Balfour, Sir Alfred Lyall and Adhted to see Sir Willia-crops hanging on the wall frolad to see those whips! Asquith will be able to beat you if you play fast and loose with hiht mouth of his convinces me he has the capacity to do it
”After my nurse had left the rooly woht be, and told me that his son, Bobby, had been in love with his nurse and wrote to her for several years He added, in his best Hanoverian vein: