Elizabeth Barrett Browning by Margaret Forster

Author:Margaret Forster [Margaret Forster]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1998-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

IT WAS A little mortifying for both Robert and Elizabeth to face up to the fact that they were not nearly so well suited to a Bohemian or a gypsy life as they had liked to imagine. The truth was that it was not good for either of them to be constantly on the move, never knowing where they would go next. Elizabeth, that summer of 1847, was very well, reporting to Henrietta that she often found herself “running unawares”. Her mental health was no longer of any concern. Not only was she in good spirits but that dark side of her personality seemed to have disappeared; with Robert at her side she was not afraid to meet new people and although she was still quiet in company it was a different kind of silence. She was not struck dumb through nervousness or social embarrassment but merely observing and listening, especially to her voluble husband. Because she was happy she felt well and the connection was not lost on her, even if she was unable to decide which way round it should be made: did her mental health dictate or follow from her physical well-being? She knew only that in the warmer climate of Italy her lungs seemed clear and that under the new régime imposed by Robert she ate and drank properly and took exercise and was stronger every day.

But nevertheless she needed the stability of a permanent base, and so, for different reasons, did Robert. Whereas Elizabeth benefited psychologically from change, Robert lost. A great deal of his energy was being frittered away searching for rooms and worrying over terms: the cares of a husband whose wife needed more than an ordinary measure of protection sat heavily upon him. In such circumstances neither of them was going to be able to work. This made the finding and renting of the Casa Guidi, which was to be their first real home, the most important event of the year.

The lease on their first lodgings ran out in July and the rooms were in any case, by mid-summer, uncomfortably hot. Most English visitors moved to the mountains or the sea in June but, though they talked endlessly of doing so, the Brownings did not manage to arrange any escape except for one excursion. This was to the Benedictine monastery at Vallombrosa outside Florence. Women were not allowed there but Elizabeth decided, stubbornly, that this was the only place for her. It was, she acknowledged to Arabel, quite perverse of her. Robert, anxious as ever to please, secured a letter from the Archbishop of Florence to the Abbot granting Elizabeth and Wilson a special dispensation to stay. On 14th July they all rose at three in the morning and at dawn began the thirteen-mile drive to Pelago where Elizabeth and Wilson were transferred from a carriage to old wine baskets and Robert to a horse. The baskets were pulled for five hours up the mountain to the monastery by two white bullocks while Robert rode alongside.

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