From H. E. Darwin to W. E. Darwin [after 14 March 1859]

My dear William.

Solemn events have happened.

M^rs Grut is gone for ever. this is how it came about. On Monday at breakfast Mama said very civilly that she wanted some alteratiration in Horace's lessons. M^rs Grut was evidently huffed at that, & then I said that I thought s'eloigner wasn't to ramble very mildly & that huffed her again & she made me some rude speech or other ""Oh very well if I knew better than the dictionary,"" I quite lost that speech then, Ma repeated it afterwards.

Nothing more came of it then, & all went smooth till I went up to my German lesson in the evening. When I came in I saw there was the devil in her face, well she scolded the children a bit & then sat down by me, when I showed her my lesson (a bit of very bad french) she said, if I knew better than she did it was no use her teaching me & so so on, till it came to a crisis, & she worked into a regular rage. Oh you've no feelings, but I have, I feel these things & so on.

This all referred to my saying I thought s'eloigner wasn't to ramble, she had been brooding over it all day & then when she had got me all to herself it burst forth, I left the room then, & went down stairs to tell my injuries.

When Papa & Mama heard all about it they settled she sh^d go at once, so Papa wrote a letter telling her she sh^d have her 33 £ & nothing more, Mama went upstairs to watch till the children had done, they all came out crying. After she couldn't scold me she fell upon them I suppose, then Papa was to go upstairs & deliver the letter. The very first thing she said was "I don't care for your legal notice to quit" & tossed the letter on one side, "M^rs Darwin engaged me for six months & you'll have to keep me. The line of conduct they had settled upon was not tell her why she was sent away so that if there was a lawsuit it might only rest upon whether we had the right to dismiss her without paying her board & lodging. Papa got such a torrent, telling him he was no gentleman, & white with passion all the time. Wanting to know what she had done, what he had to accuse her of telling him he was in a passion, she would give him time to think.

Some time ago Papa wrote to his solicitor, to ask him what he was to do about salary & his advice was pay the salary but not the board & lodging. We had a very flustered tea, & all the evening we sat preparing for the worst, what we sh^d do if she refused to go out of the house etc. However she did turn out much milder & sent us a letter to say she w^d go on Wednesday. Papa still is not sure whether we mayn't have