Charles and Emma by Deborah Heiligman Read Free Book Online Page A

danger. 7 days after she became unwell, Elizabeth sat up with her at night as she (Fanny) was too restless to sleep; towards morning she seemed cold and more uncomfortable & they sent for the apothecary…from some misunderstanding none of the family had an idea her danger was so immediate.
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    No doubt in hindsight Caroline wondered why they hadn’t sent for a doctor, perhaps their father, Dr. Darwin? An apothecary was the least-skilled medical person; why not go for the best? They could afford to pay a doctor. But they just did not realize how seriously ill Fanny was. Even Dr. Darwin, or any doctor, might not have been able to help much.
    At Maer Emma recorded in her notes, “At 9 came the fatal attack and in 5 minutes we lost our gentle, sweet Fanny, the most without selfishness of anybody I ever saw and her loss has left a blank which will never be filled up.”
    Emma’s other half was gone.
    In Caroline’s letter, Charles read about the family’s grief. “Uncle Jos was terribly over come & Aunt Bessy it was sometime before Elizabeth could make her understand what had happened,” Caroline wrote. “Father says mortification must have taken place in her bowels.” And Caroline saw, as everyone did, how terrible Fanny’s death would be for Emma, the other Dovely. She wrote, “The loss to Emma will be very great, hardly ever having been separated, all her associations of her pleasures & youth so intimately connected with her.”
    For Emma it was a terrible, wrenching loss, and one that she had not anticipated at all. It had come so quickly that it was, in a profound sense, unbelievable. But Emma found a way to cope. In Jane Austen novels, a death often precipitates the loss of a fortune, which propels the heroine to seek a husband. In this case the death propelled our heroine to seek something else. She wrote a note to herself, on a scrap of paper that she never showed anyone (her daughter Henrietta found it after her death). “Oh Lord,” Emma wrote, “help me to become more like her, and grant that I may join with Thee never to part again. I trust that my Fanny’s sweet image will never pass from my mind. Let me always keep it in my mind as a motive for holiness. What exquisite happiness it will be to be with her again, to tell her how I loved her who has joined with me in almost every enjoyment of my life.”
    Emma resolved to become good like Fanny and religious like Fanny so that she would join her in heaven. To Aunt Jessie, Emma wrote, “I feel a sad blank at the thoughts of having lost my sweet, gentle companion who has been so closely joined with me ever since we were born, but I try to keep my mind fixed upon the hope of being with her again, never to part again.”
    Emma needed to believe that she would see Fanny again one day. She told Aunt Jessie, “Such a separation as this seems to make the next world feel such a reality—it seems to bringit so much nearer to one’s mind and gives one such a desire to be found worthy of being with her.”
    Charles Darwin would later say, looking back at his own childhood and at the great differences between him and his brother, Erasmus, that he was inclined to agree with a cousin of his that “education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of anyone, and that most of our qualities are innate.” Even so, it is unquestionable that Fanny’s life and then her death affected Emma profoundly. It cemented a faith in God and eternity that could have dwindled otherwise. Emma Wedgwood now firmly believed in a heaven and a hell. She believed that if you were a good Christian you would go to heaven. And if you weren’t you would go to hell.

 
    Chapter 7
    The Sensation of Fear
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    My experience of English lovers is that if they mean
anything, they come straight to the point and make it evident.
But if not, they are as friendly as they can be, without
the