| Description | Particular details include attendance at 'Shakespeare festivities', 26 April, visits from the Bishop in March, the appointment of a new 'school mistess...Miss Wilkins', and holidays in Sutton and York, Sep. Charlotte also notes a visit to Crystal Palace where she meets her father and friends on 1 September. Domestic incidents include the ill-health of staff- 'the laundry maid' was 'attacked with congestion of the brain', 8 October.
The diary is dominated, however, by Charlotte's pregnancy and the loss of her first child. Frequent complaints about back pain and headache precede the revelation that Charlotte is pregnant, though this is only discernible from an allusive reference to her receipt of a gift of 'baby clothes' on 1 February. In the following months Charlotte's routine alters little, though she notes that she 'spent a long time trying on gowns and unpicking them', 20 May, and she also makes the stark declaration that she 'did [her] own hair!!!', 7 March. She goes into labour on the 26 July, and Fred writes the diary entries for this day and the next few months, on and off. He writes that a 'little girl was born at 5.30, but who, owing to the position never breathed'. Charlotte 'suffered excrutiatingly especially at the last - but was mercifully strengthened', 26 July. The 'little girl' is taken the following day in a pony cart and laid 'to rest' in the Churchyard- Charlotte laying 'a bouquet of white roses...on her coffin', 27 July. Fred refers to Charlotte as 'Sissy' in these entries.
The year ends on a slightly more cheerful note, as Charlotte sets off for Cannes in September, via Paris, Dijon, Lyon and Marseilles. During a stop-over in Marseilles Charlotte describes their hotel as 'dear not good', and dismisses a fellow guest as a 'vulgar Englishwoman who talked incessantly in the vilest French'. Descriptions of her stay include accounts of social engagements and walks.
Reading matter includes: 'Peter Young', and 'The Grace of Meditation' by Vaughan
Entries for 2-13 January are written in pencil on separate sheets. The volume contains a loose 'Cleaver's Companion for Churchmen. A Calendar' for 1864, and a newspaper cutting in an envelope reporting delivery of a still born daughter to Charlotte and Fred. |