Elisina Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss, March 19, 1914
Paris.
March 19th. 1914.Thursday.
Thank you so much, dearest Mildred, for the sacrifice you are willing to make, of a few hours needed rest, in order that RocchlinRocchlin has not been identified. and we may spend a happier evening on the 24th. I have just sent William with a note to Rocchlin, and if he cannot come—which is doubly possible because he is on the point of departure, as well as being a much-sought guest,—I will let you know at once, and you shall be set free to go to your bed-a bye on Tuesday. That will be my small (!) return in exchange for your gift. But what is this about twitching? Do you mean to say that you are anywhere near the stage of fatigue when twitching nerves are possible?
I hear that one judge is away on special jury and the other is attending to probate cases. So no one can foretell the when, nor the how. Meantime Grant has written again, to say I must let Gioia hear precisely that I do not mean, when I say that I cannot go back to live at Bigfrith,Grant Richard’s country home was at Bigfrith, Cookham Dean, in Berkshire. that I might go back to live elsewhere, say in London, with them. Of course he could have explained it all to her—but he says she is “catching at straws”—and he can turn the knife once more round. I hope I am not unjust to him in saying that he doesn’t mind doing that. I wrote yesterday again, saying that he must tell the children that I cannot go back to live with him as his wife either at Bigfrith or elsewhere; and that at the same time I considered it a matter of pure justice that he should also tell them that my severance from him does not imply and cannot mean any corresponding effect on my love for the children, for whom I have grieved and do grieve unceasingly.
The truth is that Grant, during all these years, has purposely built up in Gioia’s mind a small fiction of my near return, ever delayed, but certain, and now this fiction is recoiling on him, and alas! on her.
Bless you, dearest Mildred. My year has begun with sorrow, love and flowers—which means that the web and woof“Warp and weft.” of my life are in continuous threads.
Yours in thought and deed,