Meanwhile Dorset’s threats increase in virulence: on the first of May he sends Mr. Rivers to tell her she shall live neither at Knole nor at Bolbrook; on the second he sends Mr. Legg to tell the servants he will come down once more to see her, which shall be the last time; and on the third he sends Peter Basket, his gentleman of the horse, with a letter to say “it was his pleasure that the Child should go the next day to London ... when I considered that it would both make my Lord more angry with me and be worse for the Child I resolved to let her go; after I had sent for Mr. Legg and talked with him about that and other matters I wept bitterly.”
On the fourth “... the Child went into the litter to go to London.” There is no comment. It must have been a pathetic little departure.
On the ninth she received, besides the news that her mother was dangerously ill, “a letter from my Lord to let me know his determination was the Child should go to live at Horsley, and not come hither any more, so as this was a very grievous and sorrowful day to me.” An unusual bitterness escapes from her pen:
All this time my Lord was in London where he had all and infinite great resort coming to him. He went much abroad to Cocking and Bowling Alleys, to plays and horse races, and commended by all the world. I stayed in the country, having many times a sorrowful and heavy heart, and being condemned by most folks because I would not consent to the agreement, so as I may truly say I am like an owl in the desert.
My Lord came down from London, my Lord lying in Leslie Chamber and I in my own. My Lord and I after supper had some talk, we fell out and parted for that night.
There was worse to come, for at the end of the month her mother died, “which I held as the greatest and most lamentable cross that could have befallen me,” and, mixed up with this sorrow, which is evidently genuine, is the fear that she may be definitely dispossessed of the inheritance of her forefathers. She found, however, that she had the disposal of the body, “which was some contentment to my aggrieved soul.” Her sorrows begin to lighten. Dorset, probably perceiving his bullying to be worse than useless against a woman of her mettle, tries a different tack: “My Lord assured me how kind and good a husband he would be to me”; they patch up a reconciliation, and she makes over to him certain of her Cumberland estates in default of heirs; they agree that Mrs. Bathurst, apparently a bone of contention, should “go away from the Child ... so that my Lord and I were never greater friends than at this time ... and my Lord brought me down to the coach side where we had a loving and kind parting.” He even joined her in the North, and she records how at Appleby Castle she set up the “green velvet bed where the same night we went to lie there,” and how “in the afternoon I wrought stitchwork and my Lord sat and read by me.”