My existence at Ivy Cottage was one of extreme dulness varied by dread. Every meal was a _tête-à-tête_ with my father, unrelieved by the presence of any lady or young person, and he became more and more gloomy as his nervous system gradually gave way, so that after having been simply stern and unbending, he was now like a black cloud always hanging over me and ready, as it seemed, to be my destruction in some way or other not yet clearly defined. It was an immense relief to me when a guest came to dinner, and I remember being once very much interested in a gentleman who sat opposite me at table, for the simple reason that I believed him to be the Duke of Wellington. There was rather more fuss than usual in the way of preparation, and my father treated his guest with marked deference, besides which the stranger had the Wellingtonian nose, so my youthful mind was soon made up on the subject, and I listened eagerly in the hope that the hero of Waterloo would fight some of his battles over again. He remained, however, silent on that subject, and I afterwards had the disappointment of learning that our guest was not the Duke, but only the holder of a high office in the county.
My extreme loneliness.--Thoughts of flight.--My father's last illness and death.--Circumstances of my last interview with him.--His funeral.
It was one of the effects of the constant anxiety and excitement, and the dreadful wretchedness of that time, that my brain received the images of all surrounding creatures and things with an unnatural clearness and intensity, and that they were impressed upon it for life. Even now everything about Ivy Cottage is as clear as if the forty years were only as many days, and the writing of these chapters brings everything before me most vividly, not only the faces of the people and the habits and motions of the animals, but even the furniture, of which I remember every detail, down to the coloring of the services in the bedrooms, and the paint on my father's rocking-chair. An anecdote has been told in these pages about exercise with dumb-bells and an appeal to the clock. In writing that, I saw the real clock with the moon on its face (for it showed the phases of the moon), and my aunt standing near the window with her work in her hand and glancing up from the work to the clock, just as she did in reality.