Strange Music by Laura Fish Page B

another of his patients. My discovery from having studied this is that my sudden improvement results from a healing of the soul and spirit effected by Mr. Weale, to whom, if he would but allow me, I would give all mine own inheritance in order for him to work no longer as a doctor but to give his days to artistry. He is to commence a series of graphic illustrations of English poetry and I am to let him have some references to passages susceptible of such illustration. Already I know what I will send – extracts from Prior, Chaucer, Browne and Fletcher. For me, Mr. Weale will do some illustrations to my poems in The Seraphim .
    . . . There now! You are more than obeyed. I have told you everything. Oh! but I shdnt. forget a parting party on Friday night. Dr. & Mrs. Barry stopped once or twice to beg Mr. Weale to moderate his ardour a little, as really nobody cd. hear them for him! Certainly he does ‘roar like a nightingale’. But I kept my gravity admirably upstairs – having got over the first shock. Really, that first night there did seem no prospect for me but to laugh on till dawn! And Crow’s imperative, ‘Now indeed, ma’am, you MUST read your Psalms’, didn’t do much good – as you may suppose! . . .
    11 June 1839
    Dear Mr. Weale,
    The water-colour drawing is extremely beautiful and suggestive. The moonlight in it cannot be said to have ‘no business there’ – for it comes like a spirit upon the ruin – the place for spirits – and reconciles us to desolation. You have done what is said to be impossible, ‘painted a thought’. And I am satisfied to hear in the silence of your picture, Spenser’s very own voice . . .
    . . . Thank you again and again! I have written out some suggestions for paintings – as you asked me to do. Should you like any of them and wish for more, I shall be very glad to purvey for you again . . .
    My dear friend Mr. Hugh Stuart Boyd,
    I take the liberty, which I know you will not be angry about, of enclosing to you a letter of private gossip for my dear Arabel. Will you be so very kind as to enclose it to her as soon as you conveniently can. Perhaps you would allow a servant to take it to her in the course of the day . . .
    Dr. Barry says today is the day I am to go out on the sea.
    I experience a rush of energy – oh, to be out on the sea with no walls, simply breezes; no ceiling but the blue imposing sky; no hard floors.
    â€˜Am I to sail the yacht?’ I ask Bro.
    â€˜We’ll see,’ Bro replies.
    Bella Donna is at the end of a short jetty, the sails wrapped about the mast. Beside her, an aged barefoot sailor. His trousers, patched with sail cloth, emit the strong odour of sun-dried seaweed and stale salt-fish. The skin on his face resembles old wet leather. He speaks a language unknown to me. No doubt he is at home on the bare and empty water’s reach.
    â€˜You must be the boatswain. Payment, in lieu of your mackerel catch, comes when the ladies are safely back. Understand?’ Bro says to him. The old boatswain doesn’t look like he understood.
    â€˜Poor old beast,’ Bummy murmurs. ‘Won’t you join us?’ she asks Bro.
    â€˜No’. He hesitates, glances along the jetty. ‘Tomorrow?’
    Crow unburdens herself of the blankets, pillows and feather eiderdowns, and they tumble onto thick sodden ropes coiled, hideously, in the bottom of the boat. She reaches a hand up to mine. I can only nod thanks. I am near to fainting on the cushioning when Bro says I must stand up to let Bummy in then sit down. This rocking sensation is abysmal. I find this place abhorrent and sourly dislike the low unharmonious lap of water against the blue clinker sides. I wish I was back on dry land, and as far from the sea as Hope End was. Places are ideas that can madden or kill .
    â€˜Can you move?’
    â€˜No,’ I