| Transcript | Sandfontein
August 6th
1875
Dear Pater,
For the last week or two I have been thinking I ought to write to you and tell you what little I can about my beloved Herbert. It is yet an effort for me to write, and to you, but if it meets your approbation I am repaid.
My darling seemed to be getting thiner and thiner after we returned from Utrecht, he felt the cold very much and always went to bed before the sun has set, then he would have a little sleep, then he would have his tea something light a little corn flour or a custard he always eat better during the night of biscuits and raisins or any little thing I could make him, his cough was very troublesome, I was very very anxious about him and sent a Kafir on his horse one night after he had gone to bed, for Mr. Gunner, the man who had been attending him, to come and see him, he came the day after and questioned dear Herbert very much about his cough, his chest and not being able only to sleep on one side he then turned to me and said Herbert must go to Durban for two months to avoid our cold winter and he assured to me he would return at the end of that time well and strong. Dear Herbert refused to go. I was not well or strong and could get no one to stay with me and he would not hear of my going too. Mr. T offered his Kafir woman to come and she did, it was two weeks before I could get him to go, he once said 'I do not think I shall live a month longer in this place' it made me more anxious for him to go -, and he believed the change would quite restore him. He left us the 22 of April stayed a week at a friends at Newcastle, reached Durban the 16th of May the day his boy was born, he wrote to me once a week in every letter he assured me he was getting stronger faster and better when he had been there two weeks he got weighed he had gained twelve pounds, I was so happy & contented then, I had had a severe confinement. I wrote and told him he had got such a fine big boy - he wrote and said 'I always told you I wanted a boy like you is it like you?' No it is a true Lewes like its father. You do not know how dear we were to each other and what I have lost, when he painted his wagon the last thing he did at home, I had to go and admire it, the sail we stitched together the ornaments for our table the cushions for the chairs even the antimacasors we made together we were rarely apart. You have lost a dear loving son, he always spoke of "Pater as my Father with such depth of affection and the dear little Mutter" - The very life of my life is gone. I often wonder if it is true and what I can be making the black dresses for. I feel so utterly alone. He had grown so dearly fond of our little Marian. She used to wait on him so nicely, she never let him go to the door without his hat on, without running for Dadda's hat or getting his slippers when he returned home or anything she saw he wanted. We never told the child to get them. I can see him so plainly now as he would turn from the Piano, lay his hand on her head 'good night God bless you my child' - Had they have let me known I would have gone to him, but it seems the old Doctor took such a little interest in him, and has given me such unsatisfactory statements about him, and everyone says now Mr. Turner gave him sufficient Strychnia and iron to kill any man. He always thought he should soon be all right even in his last letter written only the day before he said he had walked too far the week before and was ill in a few days he would be better then he would write me a nice long letter, but that was to be the last he would write.
Marian is not old enough to send love but when she is at home she will get on my couch and kiss grandpapa's chair before going to bed because she cannot reach your face.
Love to you and the dear little Mutter.
Your affectionate daughter-in-law
errors please
excuse
Eliza Lewes |