CONTADINA, VALLEY OF THE SACCO.CONTADINA, VALLEY OF THE SACCO.[324]
Our days were for the most part spent in drawing, and many were the delightful hourswe passed in the Villa Negroni, which has now entirely disappeared, in spite of its endless historic associations, or in the desolate andbeautifulvigneof the Esquiline, which have also been destroyed since the Sardinian occupation of Rome. Indeed, those who visit Rome now that it is a very squalid modern city, can have no idea of the wealth and glory of picturesqueness which adorned its every corner before 1870, or of how romantic were the passing figures—the crimson Cardinals; the venerable generals of religious orders with their flowing white beards; the endless monks and nuns; the pifferari with their pipes; the peasant women from Cori and Arpino and Subiaco, with their great gold earrings, coral necklaces, and snowy head-dresses; the contadini in their sheep-skins and goat-skins; the handsome stalwart Guardia Nobile in splendid tight-fitting uniforms; and above all, the grand figure and beneficent face of Pius IX. so frequently passing, seated in his glass coach, in his snow-white robes, with the stoic self-estimation of the Popes, but with his own kindly smile and his fingers constantly raised in benediction.
THE BRIDGE OF AUGUSTUS, NARNI.THE BRIDGE OF AUGUSTUS, NARNI.[325]
The heat was very great before we left Rome in April. We went first to Narni, where we stayed several days in a very primitive lodging, with the smallest possible amount of furniture, and nothing to eat except cold goatand rosemary, but in a glorious situation on the terrace which overlooks the deep rift of the Nar, clothed everywhere with ilex, box, and arbutus; and we spent long hours drawing the two grand old bridges—Roman and Mediæval—which stride across the river, even Lea being stimulated by the intense beauty to a trial of her artistic powers, and making a very creditable performance of the two grand cypresses on the slope of the hill, which have disappeared under the Sardinian rule.
THE MEDIÆVAL BRIDGE, NARNI.THE MEDIÆVAL BRIDGE, NARNI.[327]
We spent a happy day at Spoleto, with itssplendid ilex woods. Here my friends Kilcoursie[326]and Pearson joined us, and I went with them to spend the morning at the Temple of the Clitumnus, and returned just too late for the train we had intended to leave by. It is very characteristic of the slowness of those early days of Italian railways, that though we did not order our carriage till some time after the train was gone, we reached Perugia by road, in spite of the steep hill to be climbed, before the train which we were to have taken arrivedon the railway. This evening's drive (April 23) is one of the Italian journeys I look back upon with greatest pleasure, the going onwards through the rich plain of vines and almonds and olives, and all the blaze of spring tulips and gladioli, and the stopping to buy the splendid oranges from the piles which lay in the little market under the old cathedral of Foligno; then seeing the sky turn opal behind the hills, and deepen in colour through a conflagration of amber, and orange, and crimson, of which the luminousness was never lost, though everything else disappeared into one dense shadow, and the great cypresses on the mountain edges were only dark spires engraven upon the sky. How many such evenings have we spent, ever moving onwards at that stately smoothvetturinopace—and silent, Mother absorbed in her heavenly, I in my earthly contemplations; dear Lea, tired by her long day, often sleeping opposite to us against the hand-bags.
We spent several days in Florence in 1866, when the streets were already placarded with such advertisements as 'I Menzogne di Genese, o l'Impostatura di Mosé'—typical of the change of Government. I paid several visits to the Comtesse d'Usedom (the Olympia Malcolm ofmy childhood), who was more extraordinary than ever. When I went to luncheon with her in the Villa Capponi, she talked incessantly for three hours, chiefly of spirits.
VIEW FROM THE BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE.VIEW FROM THE BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE.[328]
"I believe in them," she said, "of course I do. Why, haven't Iheardthem?" (with a perfect yell). "Why, I've seen a child whom we knew most intimately who was perfectly possessed by spirits—evilspirits, I mean. There is nothing efficacious againstthatkind but prayer and the crucifix. Why, the poor little thing used to struggle for hours. It used to describe the devils it saw. They were of different kinds. Sometimes it would say, 'Oh, it's only one of the innocent blackies,' and then it would shriek when it thought it saw a red devil come. It was the red devils that did all the mischief. All the best physicians were called in, but they all said the case was quite beyond them. The possession sometimes came on twice in a day. It would end by the child gasping a great sigh, as if at that moment the evil spirit went out of it, and then quite calmly it would open its eyes, wonder where it was, and remember nothing of what had happened. The doctors urged that the child should not be kept quiet, but taken abroad and amused, and mama writes me word now that it is quite well."I never saw the ghosts at Rugen," said Madame von Usedom, "but there is one of Usedom's houses there which I have refused ever to go to again, for I have heard them there often. The lady in the room with me saw them too—she saw three white sisters pulling her husband out of his grave."We have an old lady in our family, a relation of Usedom's, who has that wonderful power of second-sight.... When we left you at Bamberg (in 1853), we went to Berlin, and there we saw Usedom's relation, who told me that I was going to have a son. She 'saw it,' she said.Saw it!why, she saw it as plain as daylight: I was going to have a son: Usedom's first wife had brought him none, and I was going to give him one."When I left Berlin, we went to Rugen, but I was to return to Berlin, where my son was to be born. Well, about three weeks before my confinement was expected, the old lady sent for a relation of Usedom's, who was in Berlin, and said, 'Have you heard anything of Olympia?'—'Yes,' he said, 'I heard from Usedom yesterday, and she is going on as well as possible, and will be here in a few days.'—'No,' said the old lady, 'she will not, for the child is dead. Yesterday, as I was sitting here, three angels passed through my room with a little child in their arms, and the face of the child was so exactly like Usedom's, that I know that the child is born and that it is in heaven.' And so it was. I had a bad fall in Rugen, which we thought nothing of at the time. I had so much strength and courage that it did not seem to affect me; but a week after my boy was born—dead—killed by that fall, and the image, oh! the very image of Usedom."
"I believe in them," she said, "of course I do. Why, haven't Iheardthem?" (with a perfect yell). "Why, I've seen a child whom we knew most intimately who was perfectly possessed by spirits—evilspirits, I mean. There is nothing efficacious againstthatkind but prayer and the crucifix. Why, the poor little thing used to struggle for hours. It used to describe the devils it saw. They were of different kinds. Sometimes it would say, 'Oh, it's only one of the innocent blackies,' and then it would shriek when it thought it saw a red devil come. It was the red devils that did all the mischief. All the best physicians were called in, but they all said the case was quite beyond them. The possession sometimes came on twice in a day. It would end by the child gasping a great sigh, as if at that moment the evil spirit went out of it, and then quite calmly it would open its eyes, wonder where it was, and remember nothing of what had happened. The doctors urged that the child should not be kept quiet, but taken abroad and amused, and mama writes me word now that it is quite well.
"I never saw the ghosts at Rugen," said Madame von Usedom, "but there is one of Usedom's houses there which I have refused ever to go to again, for I have heard them there often. The lady in the room with me saw them too—she saw three white sisters pulling her husband out of his grave.
"We have an old lady in our family, a relation of Usedom's, who has that wonderful power of second-sight.... When we left you at Bamberg (in 1853), we went to Berlin, and there we saw Usedom's relation, who told me that I was going to have a son. She 'saw it,' she said.Saw it!why, she saw it as plain as daylight: I was going to have a son: Usedom's first wife had brought him none, and I was going to give him one.
"When I left Berlin, we went to Rugen, but I was to return to Berlin, where my son was to be born. Well, about three weeks before my confinement was expected, the old lady sent for a relation of Usedom's, who was in Berlin, and said, 'Have you heard anything of Olympia?'—'Yes,' he said, 'I heard from Usedom yesterday, and she is going on as well as possible, and will be here in a few days.'—'No,' said the old lady, 'she will not, for the child is dead. Yesterday, as I was sitting here, three angels passed through my room with a little child in their arms, and the face of the child was so exactly like Usedom's, that I know that the child is born and that it is in heaven.' And so it was. I had a bad fall in Rugen, which we thought nothing of at the time. I had so much strength and courage that it did not seem to affect me; but a week after my boy was born—dead—killed by that fall, and the image, oh! the very image of Usedom."
From Florence we went to Bellagio on the Lago di Como, and spent a week of glorious weather amid beautiful flowers with nightingales singing in the trees all day and night. Many of our Roman friends joined us, and we passed pleasant days together in the garden walks and in short excursions to the neighbouring villas. When we left Bellagio, the two Misses Hawker, often our companions in Rome, accompanied us. We ascended the Splugen from Chiavenna in pitch darkness,till, about 4A.M., the diligence entered upon the snow cuttings, and we proceeded for some time between walls of snow, often fifteen feet high. At last we stopped altogether, and in a spot where there was no refuge whatever from the ferocious ice-laden wind. Meantime sledges were prepared, being small open carts without wheels, which just held two persons each: my mother and I were in the second, Lea and an Italian in the third, and the Hawkers in the fourth: we had no man with our sledge. The sledges started in procession, the horses stumbling over the ledges in the snow, from which we bounded up and down. At last the path began to wind along the edge of a terrific precipice, where nothing but a slight edging of fresh snow separated one from the abyss. Where this narrow path turned it was truly horrible. Then came a tunnel festooned with long icicles; then a fearful descent down a snow-drift almost perpendicularly over the side of the mountain, the horses sliding on all fours, and the sledges crashing and bounding from one hard piece of snow to another; all this while the wind blew furiously, and the other sledges behind seemed constantly coming upon us. Certainly I never remember anything more appalling.
At the bottom of the drift was another diligence, but the Hawkers and I walked on to Splugen.
HOLMHURST, FROM THE GARDEN.HOLMHURST, FROM THE GARDEN.
We spent an interesting afternoon at Brugg, and drew at Königsfelden, where the Emperor Albert's tomb is left deserted and neglected in a stable, and Queen Agnes's room remains highly picturesque, with many relics of her. In the evening we had a lovely walk through the forest to Hapsburg, where we saw a splendid sunset from the hill of the old castle. With a glimpse at Freiburg-im-Breisgau, we reached Carlsruhe, with which we were very agreeably surprised. The Schloss Garten is really pretty, with fine trees and fountains: the town is bright and clean; and all around is the forest with its endless pleasant paths. We found dear Madame de Bunsen established with her daughters Frances and Emilia in a nice old-fashioned house, 18 Waldhornstrasse, with all their pictures and treasures around them, the fine bust of Mrs. Waddington in itself giving the room a character. Circling round the aunts were Theodora von Ungern Sternberg's five motherless children, a perpetual life-giving influence to the home. We went with them into the forest and to thefaisanerie, and picked masses of wild lilies of the valley. In the palace gardens we saw the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, a very handsome couple: she the only daughter of the King of Prussia. At the station also I saw again, and for the last time, the very pleasing Queen Emma of the Sandwich Islands, and presented the Bunsens to her.[329]On the eve of Trinity Sunday we reached home.
From myJOURNAL."July 30, 1866.—Holmhurst.—Another happy summer! How different my grown-up-hood has been to my boyhood: now all sunshine, then all reproach and misery. How strange it is that my dearest mother remembers nothing of those days,nothingof those years of bitter heartache which my uncles' wives cost me. But her present love, her beautiful full heart devotion, are all free-will offering, not sacrifice of atonement. Our little Holmhurst is most lovely and peaceful."
From myJOURNAL.
"July 30, 1866.—Holmhurst.—Another happy summer! How different my grown-up-hood has been to my boyhood: now all sunshine, then all reproach and misery. How strange it is that my dearest mother remembers nothing of those days,nothingof those years of bitter heartache which my uncles' wives cost me. But her present love, her beautiful full heart devotion, are all free-will offering, not sacrifice of atonement. Our little Holmhurst is most lovely and peaceful."
Lady Augusta StanleyLady Augusta Stanley
ALTON BARNES CHURCH.ALTON BARNES CHURCH.
In August we spent a fortnight at the Deanery at Westminster with Arthur and Augusta Stanley, the latterfit les delicesof all who came under her influence, and both were most kind in asking every one to meet us that they thought we could be interested to see. To me, however, no one was ever half so interesting as Arthur himself, and his conversation at these small Deanery dinner-parties was most delightful, though, as I have heard another say, and perhaps justly, "it was always versatile rather than accurate, brilliant rather than profound." From London we went to look after our humble friends at Alton, where all the villagers welcomed my mother with a most touching wealth of evergreen love, and where forty old people came to supper by her invitation in the barn. The owls hissed overhead in the oak rafters; the feast was lighted by candles stuck into empty ginger-beer bottles, and in quavering voices they all drank the mother's health. She made them a sweet little speech, praying that all those who were there might meet with her at the great supper of the Lamb. I had much interest at Alton in finding out those particulars which form the account of the place in "Memorials of a Quiet Life."The interest of the people, utterly unspoilt by "civilisation," can hardly be described, or the simplicity of their faith. Speaking of her long troubles and illness, "Betty Smith" said, "I ha' been sorely tried, but it be a' to help I on to thick there place." William Pontyn said, "It just be a comfort to I to know that God Almighty's always at whom:Henever goes out on a visit." Their use of fine words is very comical. Old Pontyn said, "My son-in-law need na treat I ill, for I niver gied un nopublicationfor it." He thanked mother for her "respectable gift," and said, "I do thank God ivery morning and ivery night, that I do; and thank un as I may, I niver can thank un enough, He be so awful good to I." He said the noise the threshing-machine made when out of order was "fierly ridic'lous," and that he was "fierly gallered (frightened) at it"—that he was "obliged toflagellatethe ducks to get them out of the pond."
I drove with Mr. Pile to see the remains of Wolf Hall, on the edge of Savernake Forest, where Henry VIII. married Jane Seymour. The house, once of immense size, is nearly destroyed. The roof of the banqueting-hall is now the roof of a barn. The beautiful fragment of building remaining was once thelaundry. Hard by, at Burbage, is "Jane Seymour's Pool."
After leaving Alton, as if making the round of my mother's old homes, we went to Buntingsdale, Hodnet, and Stoke. While at the former, I remember the Tayleurs being full of the promptitude of old Mrs. Massie (whose son Edward married our cousin Sophy Mytton). When above ninety she had been taken to see the church of Northwich, where some one pointed out to her a gravestone with the epitaph—
"Some have children, and some have none;Here lies the mother of twenty-one."
Old Mrs. Massie drew herself up to her full height and at once made this impromptu—
"Some have many, and some have few;Herestandsthe mother of twenty-two."
And what she said was true.
My mother turned south from Shropshire, and I went to Lyme, near Disley, the fine old house of the Leghs, whose then head, W. T. Legh, had married Emily Wodehouse, one of the earliest friends of my childhood. It is a most stately old house, standing high in a very wild park, one of the only three places where wild cattle are not extinct. The story of the place is curious.
"Old Colonel Legh of Lyme left his property first to his son Tom, but though Tom Legh was twice married, he had no sons, so it came to the father of the present possessor. Tom's first wife had been the celebrated Miss Turner. Her father was a Manchester manufacturer, who had bought the property of Shrigley, near Lyme, of which his only daughter was the heiress. She was carried off from school by a conspiracy between three brothers named Gibbon Wakefield and a Miss Davis, daughter of a very respectable master of the Grammar School at Macclesfield. While at school, Miss Turner received a letter from home which mentioned casually that her family had changed their butler. Two days after, a person purporting to be the new butler came to the school, and sent in a letter to say that Mr. Turner was dangerously ill, and that he was sent to fetch his daughter, who was to return home at once. In the greatest hurry, Miss Turner was got ready and sent off. When they had gone some way, the carriage stopped, and a young man got in, who said that he had been sent to break to her the news that her father's illness was a fiction; that they did not wish to spread the truth by letting the governess know, but that the fact was that Mr. Turner had got into some terrible money difficulties and was completely ruined, and he begged that his daughter would proceed at once to meet him in Scotland, whither he was obliged to go to evade his creditors. During the journey the young man who was sent to chaperon Miss Turner made himself most agreeable. At last they reached Berwick, and then at the inn, going out of the room, he returned with a letter and said thathe was almost afraid to tell her its contents, but that it was sent by her father's command, and that he only implored her to forgive him for obeying her father's orders. It was a most urgent letter from her father, saying that it rested with her to extricate him from his difficulties, which she could do by consenting to marry the bearer. The man was handsome and pleasant, and the marriage seemed no great trial to the girl, who was under fifteen. Immediately after marriage she was taken to Paris."Meantime all the gentlemen in the county rallied round Mr. Turner, and he contrived somehow to get his daughter away whilst she was in Paris. Suspicion had been first excited in the mind of the governess because letters for Miss Turner continued to arrive at the school from Shrigley, and she gave the alarm. There was a great trial, at which all the gentlemen in Cheshire accompanied Mr. Turner when he appeared leading his daughter. The marriage was pronounced null and void, and one of the Gibbon Wakefields was imprisoned at Lancaster for five years, the others for two. It was the utmost punishment that could be given for misdemeanour, and nothing more could be proved. The Gibbon Wakefields had thought that, rather than expose his daughter to three days in a witness box, Mr. Turner would consent to a regular marriage, and they had relied upon that. Miss Turner was afterwards married to Mr. Legh, in the hope of uniting two fine properties, but as she had no son, her daughter, Mrs. Lowther, is now the mistress of Shrigley."ToMYMOTHER."Lyme Hall, August 29, 1866.—I have been with Mrs. Legh to Bramhall, the fine old house of the Davenports, near Stockport, with the haunted room of Lady Dorothy Davenport and no end of relics. Out of the billiard-room opens the parish church, in the same style as the house, with prayer-books chained to the seats. We returned by Marple, the wonderfully curious old house of Bradshaw the regicide.""Sept. 1.—To-day we had a charming drive over the hills, the green glens of pasture-land, the steeps, and the tossing burns recalling those of Westmoreland. I went with Mrs. Legh into one of the cottages and admired the blue wash of the room, 'Oh,youlike it, do ye?' said the mistress of the house; 'I don't—so that's difference of opinions.' The whole ceiling was hung with different kinds of herbs, 'for we're our own doctors, ye see, and it saves the physic bills.'"The four children—Sybil and Mob (Mabel), Tom and Gilbert Legh, are delightful, and Sybil quite lovely. It is a pleasure to hear the little feet come scampering down the oak staircase, as the four rush down to the library to ask for a story at seven o'clock—'A nice horrible story, all about robbers and murders: now do tell us a really horrible one.'""Thornycroft Hall, Cheshire, Sept.3.—The family here are much depressed by the reappearance of the cattle plague. In the last attack sixty-eight cows died,and so rapidly that men had to be up all night burying them by lantern-light in one great grave in the park.... How curious the remains of French expressions are as used by the cottagers here. They speak ofcarafesof water, and say they should not oss (oser) to do a thing. The other day one of the Birtles tenants was being examined as a witness at the Manchester assizes. 'You told me so and so, didn't you?' said the lawyer. And the man replied, 'I tell't ye nowt o' the kind, ye powther-headed monkey; ask the coompany now if I did.'"
"Old Colonel Legh of Lyme left his property first to his son Tom, but though Tom Legh was twice married, he had no sons, so it came to the father of the present possessor. Tom's first wife had been the celebrated Miss Turner. Her father was a Manchester manufacturer, who had bought the property of Shrigley, near Lyme, of which his only daughter was the heiress. She was carried off from school by a conspiracy between three brothers named Gibbon Wakefield and a Miss Davis, daughter of a very respectable master of the Grammar School at Macclesfield. While at school, Miss Turner received a letter from home which mentioned casually that her family had changed their butler. Two days after, a person purporting to be the new butler came to the school, and sent in a letter to say that Mr. Turner was dangerously ill, and that he was sent to fetch his daughter, who was to return home at once. In the greatest hurry, Miss Turner was got ready and sent off. When they had gone some way, the carriage stopped, and a young man got in, who said that he had been sent to break to her the news that her father's illness was a fiction; that they did not wish to spread the truth by letting the governess know, but that the fact was that Mr. Turner had got into some terrible money difficulties and was completely ruined, and he begged that his daughter would proceed at once to meet him in Scotland, whither he was obliged to go to evade his creditors. During the journey the young man who was sent to chaperon Miss Turner made himself most agreeable. At last they reached Berwick, and then at the inn, going out of the room, he returned with a letter and said thathe was almost afraid to tell her its contents, but that it was sent by her father's command, and that he only implored her to forgive him for obeying her father's orders. It was a most urgent letter from her father, saying that it rested with her to extricate him from his difficulties, which she could do by consenting to marry the bearer. The man was handsome and pleasant, and the marriage seemed no great trial to the girl, who was under fifteen. Immediately after marriage she was taken to Paris.
"Meantime all the gentlemen in the county rallied round Mr. Turner, and he contrived somehow to get his daughter away whilst she was in Paris. Suspicion had been first excited in the mind of the governess because letters for Miss Turner continued to arrive at the school from Shrigley, and she gave the alarm. There was a great trial, at which all the gentlemen in Cheshire accompanied Mr. Turner when he appeared leading his daughter. The marriage was pronounced null and void, and one of the Gibbon Wakefields was imprisoned at Lancaster for five years, the others for two. It was the utmost punishment that could be given for misdemeanour, and nothing more could be proved. The Gibbon Wakefields had thought that, rather than expose his daughter to three days in a witness box, Mr. Turner would consent to a regular marriage, and they had relied upon that. Miss Turner was afterwards married to Mr. Legh, in the hope of uniting two fine properties, but as she had no son, her daughter, Mrs. Lowther, is now the mistress of Shrigley."
ToMYMOTHER.
"Lyme Hall, August 29, 1866.—I have been with Mrs. Legh to Bramhall, the fine old house of the Davenports, near Stockport, with the haunted room of Lady Dorothy Davenport and no end of relics. Out of the billiard-room opens the parish church, in the same style as the house, with prayer-books chained to the seats. We returned by Marple, the wonderfully curious old house of Bradshaw the regicide."
"Sept. 1.—To-day we had a charming drive over the hills, the green glens of pasture-land, the steeps, and the tossing burns recalling those of Westmoreland. I went with Mrs. Legh into one of the cottages and admired the blue wash of the room, 'Oh,youlike it, do ye?' said the mistress of the house; 'I don't—so that's difference of opinions.' The whole ceiling was hung with different kinds of herbs, 'for we're our own doctors, ye see, and it saves the physic bills.'
"The four children—Sybil and Mob (Mabel), Tom and Gilbert Legh, are delightful, and Sybil quite lovely. It is a pleasure to hear the little feet come scampering down the oak staircase, as the four rush down to the library to ask for a story at seven o'clock—'A nice horrible story, all about robbers and murders: now do tell us a really horrible one.'"
"Thornycroft Hall, Cheshire, Sept.3.—The family here are much depressed by the reappearance of the cattle plague. In the last attack sixty-eight cows died,and so rapidly that men had to be up all night burying them by lantern-light in one great grave in the park.... How curious the remains of French expressions are as used by the cottagers here. They speak ofcarafesof water, and say they should not oss (oser) to do a thing. The other day one of the Birtles tenants was being examined as a witness at the Manchester assizes. 'You told me so and so, didn't you?' said the lawyer. And the man replied, 'I tell't ye nowt o' the kind, ye powther-headed monkey; ask the coompany now if I did.'"
From Thornycroft I went to stay (only three miles off) at Birtles, the charming, comfortable home of the Hibberts—very old friends of all our family. Mrs. Hibbert,néeCaroline Cholmondeley, was very intimate with my aunt Mrs. Stanley, and a most interesting and agreeable person; and I always found a visit to Birtles a most admirable discipline, as my great ignorance was so much discovered and commented upon, that it was always a stimulus to further exertion. It was on this occasion that Mrs. Hibbert told me a very remarkable story. It had been told her by Mrs. Gaskell the authoress, who said that she felt so greatly the uncertainty of life, that she wished a story which might possibly be of consequence, and which had been intrusted to her, to remain with some one who was certain to record itaccurately. Three weeks afterwards, sitting by the fire with her daughter, Mrs. Gaskell died suddenly in her arm-chair. Mrs. Hibbert, in her turn, wished to share her trust with some one, and she selected me.
In my childhood I remember well the Misses T., who were great friends of my aunt Mrs. Stanley, and very clever agreeable old ladies. "Many years before," as Mrs. Gaskell described to Mrs. Hibbert, "they had had the care of a young cousin, a girl whose beauty and cleverness were a great delight to them. But when she was very young, indeed in the first year of her 'coming out,' she engaged herself to marry a Major Alcock. In a worldly point of view the marriage was all that could be desired. Major Alcock was a man of fortune with a fine place in Leicestershire: he was a good man, of high character, and likely to make an excellent husband. Still it was a disappointment—an almost unspoken disappointment—to her friends that the young lady should marry so soon—'she was so young,' they thought; she had had so few opportunities of judging persons; they had looked forward to having her so much longer with them,' &c."When Mrs. Alcock went to her new home in Leicestershire, it was a great comfort to the Misses T. and others who cared for her that some old friends of the family would be her nearest neighbours, and could keep them cognisant of how she was going on. For some time the letters of these friends described Mrs. Alcock as radiantly, perfectly happy. Mrs. Alcock's own letters also gave glowing descriptions of her home,of the kindness of her husband, of her own perfect felicity. But after a time a change came over the letters on both sides. The neighbours described Mrs. Alcock as sad and pale, and constantly silent and preoccupied, and in the letters of Mrs. Alcock herself there was a reserve and want of all her former cheerfulness, which aroused great uneasiness."The Misses T. went to see Mrs. Alcock, and found her terribly, awfully changed—haggard, worn, preoccupied, with an expression of fixed melancholy in her eyes. Both to them and to the doctors who were called in to her she said that the cause of her suffering was that, waking or sleeping, she seemed to see before her a face, the face of a man whom she exactly described, and that she was sure that some dreadful misfortune was about to befall her from the owner of that face. Waking, she seemed to see it, or, if she fell asleep, she dreamt of it. The doctors said that it was a case of what is known as phantasmagoria; that the fact was that in her unmarried state Mrs. Alcock had not only had every indulgence and consideration, but that even the ordinary rubs of practical life had been warded off from her; and that having been suddenly transplanted into being the head of a large establishment in Leicestershire, with quantities of visitors coming and going throughout the hunting season, had been too much for a very peculiar and nervous temperament, and that over-fatigue and unwonted excitement had settled into this peculiar form of delusion. She must have perfect rest, they said, and her mind would soon recover its usual tone."This was acted upon. The house in Leicestershirewas shut up, and Major and Mrs. Alcock went abroad for the summer. The remedy completely answered. Mrs. Alcock forgot all about the face, slept well, enjoyed herself extremely and became perfectly healthy in body and mind. So well was she, that it was thought a pity to run the risk of bringing her back to Leicestershire just before the hunting season, the busiest time there, and it was decided to establish her cure by taking her to pass the winter at Rome."One of the oldest established hotels in Rome is the Hôtel d'Angleterre in the Bocca di Leone. It was to it that travellers generally went first when they arrived at Rome in the oldvetturinodays; and there, by the fountain near the hotel door which plays into a sarcophagus under the shadow of two old pepper-trees, idle contadini used to collect in old days to see the foreigners arrive. So I remember it in the happy old days, and so it was on the evening on which the heavily laden carriage of the Alcock family rolled into the Bocca di Leone and stopped at the door of the Hôtel d'Angleterre. Major Alcock got out, and Mrs. Alcock got out, but, as she was descending the steps of the carriage, she happened to glance round at the group under the pepper-trees, and she uttered a piercing shriek, fell down upon the ground, and was carried unconscious into the hotel."When Mrs. Alcock came to herself, she affirmed that amongst the group near the door of the hotel she had recognised the owner of the face which had so long tormented her, and she was certain that some dreadful misfortune was about to overwhelm her. Doctors,summoned in haste, when informed of her previous condition, declared that the same results were owing to the same causes. Major Alcock, who disliked bad hotels, had insisted on posting straight through to Rome from Perugia; there had been difficulties about horses, altercations with the post-boys—in fact, 'the delusion of Mrs. Alcock was owing, as before, to over-fatigue and excitement: she must have perfect rest, and she would soon recover.'"So it proved. Quiet and rest soon restored Mrs. Alcock, and she was soon able to enjoy going about quietly and entering into the interests of Rome. It was decided that she should be saved all possible fatigue, even the slight one of Roman housekeeping: so the family remained at the Hôtel d'Angleterre. Towards January, however, Mrs. Alcock was so well that they sent out some of the numerous letters of introduction which they had brought with them, and, in answer to these, many of the Romans came to call. One day a Roman Marchese was shown upstairs to the Alcocks' room, and another gentleman went up with him. The Marchese thought, 'Another visitor come to call at the same time as myself,' the waiter, having only one name given him, thought, 'The Marchese and his brother, or the Marchese and a friend,' and they were shown in together. As they entered the room, Mrs. Alcock was sitting on the other side of the fire; she jumped up, looked suddenly behind the Marchese at his companion, again uttered a fearful scream, and again fell down insensible. Both gentlemen backed out of the room, and the Marchese said in a well-bred way that as the Signora was suddenly taken ill, he shouldhope for another opportunity of seeing her. The other gentleman went out at the same time."Again medical assistance was summoned, and again the same cause was ascribed to Mrs. Alcock's illness: this time she was said to be over-fatigued by sight-seeing. Again quiet and rest seemed to restore her."It was the spring of 1848—the year of the Louis Philippe revolution. Major Alcock had a younger sister to whom he was sole guardian, and who was at school in Paris, and he told his wife that, in the troubled state of political affairs, he could not reconcile it to his conscience to leave her there unprotected; he must go and take her away. Mrs. Alcock begged that, if he went, she might go with him, but naturally he said that was impossible—there might be bloodshed going on—there might be barricades to get over—there might be endless difficulties in getting out of Paris; at any rate, there would be a hurried and exciting journey, which would be sure to bring back her malady: no, she had friends at Rome,—she must stay quietly there at the hotel till he came back. Mrs. Alcock, with the greatest excitement, entreated, implored her husband upon her knees that she might go with him; but Major Alcock thought this very excitement was the more reason for leaving her behind, and he went without her."As all know, the Louis Philippe revolution was a very slight affair. The English had no difficulty in getting out of Paris, and in a fortnight Major Alcock was back in Rome, bringing his sister with him. When he arrived, Mrs. Alcock was gone. She was never, never heard of again. There was no trace of her whatever. All that ever was known of Mrs. Alcockwas that, on the day of her disappearance, some people who knew her were walking in front of S. John Lateran, and saw a carriage driving very rapidly towards the Porta S. Giovanni Laterano, and in it sat Mrs. Alcock crying and wringing her hands as if her heart would break, and by her side there sat a strange man, with the face she had so often described."
In my childhood I remember well the Misses T., who were great friends of my aunt Mrs. Stanley, and very clever agreeable old ladies. "Many years before," as Mrs. Gaskell described to Mrs. Hibbert, "they had had the care of a young cousin, a girl whose beauty and cleverness were a great delight to them. But when she was very young, indeed in the first year of her 'coming out,' she engaged herself to marry a Major Alcock. In a worldly point of view the marriage was all that could be desired. Major Alcock was a man of fortune with a fine place in Leicestershire: he was a good man, of high character, and likely to make an excellent husband. Still it was a disappointment—an almost unspoken disappointment—to her friends that the young lady should marry so soon—'she was so young,' they thought; she had had so few opportunities of judging persons; they had looked forward to having her so much longer with them,' &c.
"When Mrs. Alcock went to her new home in Leicestershire, it was a great comfort to the Misses T. and others who cared for her that some old friends of the family would be her nearest neighbours, and could keep them cognisant of how she was going on. For some time the letters of these friends described Mrs. Alcock as radiantly, perfectly happy. Mrs. Alcock's own letters also gave glowing descriptions of her home,of the kindness of her husband, of her own perfect felicity. But after a time a change came over the letters on both sides. The neighbours described Mrs. Alcock as sad and pale, and constantly silent and preoccupied, and in the letters of Mrs. Alcock herself there was a reserve and want of all her former cheerfulness, which aroused great uneasiness.
"The Misses T. went to see Mrs. Alcock, and found her terribly, awfully changed—haggard, worn, preoccupied, with an expression of fixed melancholy in her eyes. Both to them and to the doctors who were called in to her she said that the cause of her suffering was that, waking or sleeping, she seemed to see before her a face, the face of a man whom she exactly described, and that she was sure that some dreadful misfortune was about to befall her from the owner of that face. Waking, she seemed to see it, or, if she fell asleep, she dreamt of it. The doctors said that it was a case of what is known as phantasmagoria; that the fact was that in her unmarried state Mrs. Alcock had not only had every indulgence and consideration, but that even the ordinary rubs of practical life had been warded off from her; and that having been suddenly transplanted into being the head of a large establishment in Leicestershire, with quantities of visitors coming and going throughout the hunting season, had been too much for a very peculiar and nervous temperament, and that over-fatigue and unwonted excitement had settled into this peculiar form of delusion. She must have perfect rest, they said, and her mind would soon recover its usual tone.
"This was acted upon. The house in Leicestershirewas shut up, and Major and Mrs. Alcock went abroad for the summer. The remedy completely answered. Mrs. Alcock forgot all about the face, slept well, enjoyed herself extremely and became perfectly healthy in body and mind. So well was she, that it was thought a pity to run the risk of bringing her back to Leicestershire just before the hunting season, the busiest time there, and it was decided to establish her cure by taking her to pass the winter at Rome.
"One of the oldest established hotels in Rome is the Hôtel d'Angleterre in the Bocca di Leone. It was to it that travellers generally went first when they arrived at Rome in the oldvetturinodays; and there, by the fountain near the hotel door which plays into a sarcophagus under the shadow of two old pepper-trees, idle contadini used to collect in old days to see the foreigners arrive. So I remember it in the happy old days, and so it was on the evening on which the heavily laden carriage of the Alcock family rolled into the Bocca di Leone and stopped at the door of the Hôtel d'Angleterre. Major Alcock got out, and Mrs. Alcock got out, but, as she was descending the steps of the carriage, she happened to glance round at the group under the pepper-trees, and she uttered a piercing shriek, fell down upon the ground, and was carried unconscious into the hotel.
"When Mrs. Alcock came to herself, she affirmed that amongst the group near the door of the hotel she had recognised the owner of the face which had so long tormented her, and she was certain that some dreadful misfortune was about to overwhelm her. Doctors,summoned in haste, when informed of her previous condition, declared that the same results were owing to the same causes. Major Alcock, who disliked bad hotels, had insisted on posting straight through to Rome from Perugia; there had been difficulties about horses, altercations with the post-boys—in fact, 'the delusion of Mrs. Alcock was owing, as before, to over-fatigue and excitement: she must have perfect rest, and she would soon recover.'
"So it proved. Quiet and rest soon restored Mrs. Alcock, and she was soon able to enjoy going about quietly and entering into the interests of Rome. It was decided that she should be saved all possible fatigue, even the slight one of Roman housekeeping: so the family remained at the Hôtel d'Angleterre. Towards January, however, Mrs. Alcock was so well that they sent out some of the numerous letters of introduction which they had brought with them, and, in answer to these, many of the Romans came to call. One day a Roman Marchese was shown upstairs to the Alcocks' room, and another gentleman went up with him. The Marchese thought, 'Another visitor come to call at the same time as myself,' the waiter, having only one name given him, thought, 'The Marchese and his brother, or the Marchese and a friend,' and they were shown in together. As they entered the room, Mrs. Alcock was sitting on the other side of the fire; she jumped up, looked suddenly behind the Marchese at his companion, again uttered a fearful scream, and again fell down insensible. Both gentlemen backed out of the room, and the Marchese said in a well-bred way that as the Signora was suddenly taken ill, he shouldhope for another opportunity of seeing her. The other gentleman went out at the same time.
"Again medical assistance was summoned, and again the same cause was ascribed to Mrs. Alcock's illness: this time she was said to be over-fatigued by sight-seeing. Again quiet and rest seemed to restore her.
"It was the spring of 1848—the year of the Louis Philippe revolution. Major Alcock had a younger sister to whom he was sole guardian, and who was at school in Paris, and he told his wife that, in the troubled state of political affairs, he could not reconcile it to his conscience to leave her there unprotected; he must go and take her away. Mrs. Alcock begged that, if he went, she might go with him, but naturally he said that was impossible—there might be bloodshed going on—there might be barricades to get over—there might be endless difficulties in getting out of Paris; at any rate, there would be a hurried and exciting journey, which would be sure to bring back her malady: no, she had friends at Rome,—she must stay quietly there at the hotel till he came back. Mrs. Alcock, with the greatest excitement, entreated, implored her husband upon her knees that she might go with him; but Major Alcock thought this very excitement was the more reason for leaving her behind, and he went without her.
"As all know, the Louis Philippe revolution was a very slight affair. The English had no difficulty in getting out of Paris, and in a fortnight Major Alcock was back in Rome, bringing his sister with him. When he arrived, Mrs. Alcock was gone. She was never, never heard of again. There was no trace of her whatever. All that ever was known of Mrs. Alcockwas that, on the day of her disappearance, some people who knew her were walking in front of S. John Lateran, and saw a carriage driving very rapidly towards the Porta S. Giovanni Laterano, and in it sat Mrs. Alcock crying and wringing her hands as if her heart would break, and by her side there sat a strange man, with the face she had so often described."
I have my own theories as to the explanation of this strange story of Mrs. Alcock, but as they are evolved entirely from my own imagination, I will not mention them here.
BODRYDDAN.BODRYDDAN.
From Cheshire I went to North Wales to pay a visit to our cousinhood at Bodryddan, which had been the home of my grandmother's only brother, the Dean of St. Asaph. The place has been spoilt since, but was very charming in those days. Under an old clock-tower one entered upon a handsome drive with an avenue of fine elms, on the right of which a lawn, with magnificent firs, oaks, and cedars, swept away to the hills. At the end rose the stately old red brick house, half covered with magnolias, myrtles, and buddlea, with blazing beds of scarlet and yellow flowers lighting up its base. Through an oak hall hung with armour a fine staircase led to the library—an immense room with two deep recesses, entirely furnished with black oak from Copenhagen,and adorned with valuable enamels collected at Lisbon. The place had belonged to the Conwys, and that family ended in three sisters, Lady Stapleton, Mrs. Cotton, and Mrs. Yonge: they had equal shares. Mrs. Cotton bought up Lady Stapleton's share, and left it with her own to the two daughters of her sister Mrs. Yonge, of whom the elder married my great-uncle, Dean Shipley, and was the mother of William and Charles Shipley and of the three female firstcousins (Penelope, Mrs. Pelham Warren; Emily, Mrs. Heber; and Anna Maria, Mrs. Dashwood) who played so large a part in the early history of my father and his brothers, and who are frequently mentioned in the first volume of these memoirs.
When Dean Shipley married, he removed to his wife's house of Bodryddan. Miss Yonge lived with them, and after her sister's death the Dean was most anxious to marry her, trying to obtain an Act of Parliament for the purpose. For some years their aunt, Lady Stapleton, also continued to hold a life-interest in the property. Of this lady there is a curious portrait at Bodryddan. She is represented with her two children and a little Moor, for whom her own little boy had conceived the most passionate attachment, and from whom he could never bear to be separated. One night, after this little Moor was grown up, Lady Stapleton, returning very late from a ball, went to bed, leaving all her diamonds lying upon the table. Being awakened by a noise in the room, she saw the Moor come in with a large knife in his hand, and begin gathering up her jewels. Never losing her presence of mind, she raised herself up in bed, and, fixing her eyes upon him, exclaimed in a thrilling tone of reproach,"Pompey, is that you?" This she did three times, and the third time the Moor, covering his face with his hands, rushed out of the room. Nothing was heard of him till many years afterwards, when the chaplain of a Devonshire gaol wrote to Lady Stapleton that one of his prisoners, under sentence of death for murder, was most anxious to see her. She was unable to go, but heard afterwards that it was Pompey, who said that on the night he entered her room he had intended to kill her, but that when she spoke, such a sense of his ingratitude overwhelmed him, that he was unable to do it.
As an ecclesiastical dignitary, Dean Shipley would certainly be called to account in our days. He was devoted to hunting and shooting, and used to go up for weeks together to a little public-house in the hills above Bodryddan, where he gave himself up entirely to the society of his horses and dogs. He had led a very fast life before he took orders, and he had a natural daughter by a Mrs. Hamilton, who became the second wife of our grandfather; but after his ordination there was no further stain upon his character. As a father he was exceedingly severe. He never permitted his daughters to sit down in his presence, and he never allowedtwo of them to be in the room with him at once, because he could not endure the additional talking caused by their speaking to one another. His daughter Anna Maria had become engaged to Captain Dashwood, a very handsome young officer, but before the time came at which he was to claim her hand, he was completely paralysed, crippled, and almost imbecile. Then she flung herself upon her knees, imploring her father with tears not to insist upon her marriage with him; but the Dean sternly refused to relent, saying she had given her word, and must keep to it.
She nursed Captain Dashwood indefatigably till he died, and then she came back to Bodryddan, and lived there with her aunt Mrs. Yonge, finding it dreadfully dull, for she was a brilliant talker and adored society. At last she went abroad with her aunt Louisa Shipley, and at Corfu she met Sir Thomas Maitland, who gave her magnificent diamonds, and asked her to marry him. But she insisted on coming home to ask her father's consent, at which the Dean was quite furious. "Why could you not marry him at once?"—and indeed, before she could get back to her lover, he died!
After the death of Mrs. Yonge, Mrs. Dashwood lived at Cheltenham, a rich and cleverwidow, and had many proposals. To the disgust of her family, she insisted upon accepting Colonel Jones, who had been a neighbour at Bodryddan, and was celebrated for his fearfully violent temper. The day before the wedding it was nearly all off, because, when he came to look at her luggage, he insisted on her having only one box, and stamped all her things down into it, spoiling all her new dresses. He made her go with him for a wedding tour all over Scotland in a pony-carriage, without a maid, and she hated it; but in a year he died.
Then she insisted on marrying the Rev. G. Chetwode, who had had one wife before and had two afterwards—an old beau, who used to comb his hair with a leaden comb to efface the grey. On her death he inherited all she had—diamonds, £2000 a year, all the fine pictures left her by Mr. Jones, and all those Landor had collected for her in Italy.
But to return to Dean Shipley. To Mrs. Rowley, who was the mistress of Bodryddan when I was there, the Dean had been the kindest of grandfathers, and she had no recollection of him which was not associated with the most unlimited indulgence. The Dean was much interested in the management of his estate, but he insisted that every detail shouldpass through his own hands. For instance, while he was absent in London, a number of curious images and carvings in alabaster were discovered under the pavement at Bodryddan: news was immediately sent to him, but he desired that everything should be covered up, and remain till he came home. On his return, he put off the examination from time to time, till, on his death, the place was forgotten, and now no one is able to discover it.
Mrs. Rowley was the beautiful Charlotte, only daughter of Colonel William Shipley, and had led an adventurous life, distinguishing herself by her bravery and heroism during the plague while she was in the East, and on various other occasions. By her marriage with Colonel Rowley, second son of the first Lord Langford, she had three children,—Shipley Conwy, the present owner of Bodryddan; Gwynydd, who has married twice; and Efah, who, after her mother's death, made a happy marriage with Captain Somerset.
In her early married life, Mrs. Rowley had lived much in Berkeley Square with her mother-in-law, old Lady Langford, who was the original of Lady Kew in "The Newcomes," and many pitched battles they had, in which the daughter-in-law generally came off victorious.Lady Langford had been very beautiful, clever, and had hadune vie très orageuse. She had much excuse, however. She had only once seen her cousin, Lord Langford, when he came to visit her grandmother, and the next day the old lady told her she was to marry him. "Very well, grandmama, but when?"—"I never in my life heard such an impertinent question," said the grandmother; "what business is it of yourswhenyou are to marry him? You will marry him when I tell you. However, whenever you hear me order six horses to the carriage, you may know that you are going to be married." And so it was.
At the time I was at Bodryddan, the most devoted and affectionate deference was shown by Mrs. Rowley to every word, movement, or wish of her only brother, Colonel Shipley Conwy. He looked still young, but was quite helpless from paralysis. Mrs. Rowley sat by him and fed him like a child. It was one mouthful for her brother, the next for herself. When dinner was over, a servant came in and wrung his arms and legs, as you would pull bell-ropes, to prevent the joints from stiffening (a process repeated several times in the evening), and then carried him out. But with all this, Colonel Shipley Conwy—always patient—was very bright and pleasant, and Mrs. Rowley, who said that she owed everything to my father and his interest in her education, was most cordial in welcoming me. I never saw either of these cousins again. They spent the next two winters at the Cape, and both died a few years afterwards.
A little later, I went to stay at Dalton Hall in Lancashire, to visit Mrs. Hornby, a cousin of my Aunt Penrhyn, and a very sweet and charming old lady, who never failed to be loved by all who came within her influence. She told me many old family stories, amongst others how—
"The late Lord Derby (the 13th Earl) was very fond of natural history even as a boy. One night he dreamt most vividly of a rare nest in the ivy on the wall, and that he was most anxious to get it, but it was impossible. In the morning, the nest was on his dressing-table, and it could only have got there by his opening the window in his sleep and climbing the wall to it in that state."Another instance of his sleep-walking relates that he had a passion, as a little boy, for sliding down the banisters, but it was strictly forbidden. One night his tutor had been sitting up late reading in the hall, when he saw one of the bedroom doors open, and a little boy come out in his night-shirt and slide down the banisters. This he did two or three times, and when the tutor made some little noise, he ran upstairsand disappeared into his bedroom. The tutor followed, but the little boy was fast asleep in bed."
"The late Lord Derby (the 13th Earl) was very fond of natural history even as a boy. One night he dreamt most vividly of a rare nest in the ivy on the wall, and that he was most anxious to get it, but it was impossible. In the morning, the nest was on his dressing-table, and it could only have got there by his opening the window in his sleep and climbing the wall to it in that state.
"Another instance of his sleep-walking relates that he had a passion, as a little boy, for sliding down the banisters, but it was strictly forbidden. One night his tutor had been sitting up late reading in the hall, when he saw one of the bedroom doors open, and a little boy come out in his night-shirt and slide down the banisters. This he did two or three times, and when the tutor made some little noise, he ran upstairsand disappeared into his bedroom. The tutor followed, but the little boy was fast asleep in bed."
Apropos of sleep-walking, Mr. Bagot (husband of Mrs. Hornby's daughter Lucy) told me a story he had just seen in theTimes:—
"A large pat of butter was lately on the breakfast table of a family. When it was divided, a gold watch and chain were found in the midst of it. The maid who was waiting gave a shriek, and first rushed off to her room, then, coming back, declared it was hers. The family were much surprised, but what she said turned out to be true. She had dreamt that she was going to be robbed of her watch and chain, and that the only way of hiding them would be to wrap them up in a pat of butter, and she had done it in her sleep."
"A large pat of butter was lately on the breakfast table of a family. When it was divided, a gold watch and chain were found in the midst of it. The maid who was waiting gave a shriek, and first rushed off to her room, then, coming back, declared it was hers. The family were much surprised, but what she said turned out to be true. She had dreamt that she was going to be robbed of her watch and chain, and that the only way of hiding them would be to wrap them up in a pat of butter, and she had done it in her sleep."
A sister-in-law of Mrs. Hornby—a Mrs. Bayley—was staying at Dalton when I was there. She told me—first hand—a story of which I have heard many distorted versions. I give it in her words:—
"My sister, Mrs. Hamilton (néeArmstrong), was one night going to bed, when she saw a man's foot project from under the bed. She knelt down then and there by the bedside and prayed for the wicked people who were going about—for theknownwicked person especially—that they might be converted. When she concluded, the man came from under the bed and said, 'I have heard your prayer, ma'am, and with all myheart I say Amen to it;' and he did her no harm and went away. She heard from him years afterwards, and he was a changed man from that day."
"My sister, Mrs. Hamilton (néeArmstrong), was one night going to bed, when she saw a man's foot project from under the bed. She knelt down then and there by the bedside and prayed for the wicked people who were going about—for theknownwicked person especially—that they might be converted. When she concluded, the man came from under the bed and said, 'I have heard your prayer, ma'am, and with all myheart I say Amen to it;' and he did her no harm and went away. She heard from him years afterwards, and he was a changed man from that day."
Apropos of the growth of a story by exaggeration, Mrs. Bayley said:—
"The first person said, 'Poor Mrs. Richards was so ill that what she threw up was almost like a black crow.' The second said, 'Poor Mrs. Richards was so ill: it was the most dreadful thing, she actually threw up a black crow.' The third said, 'Poor Mrs. Richards has the most dreadful malady: it is almost too terrible to speak of, but she has already thrown up ... three black crows.'"
"The first person said, 'Poor Mrs. Richards was so ill that what she threw up was almost like a black crow.' The second said, 'Poor Mrs. Richards was so ill: it was the most dreadful thing, she actually threw up a black crow.' The third said, 'Poor Mrs. Richards has the most dreadful malady: it is almost too terrible to speak of, but she has already thrown up ... three black crows.'"
Mrs. Bayley was a very "religious" person, but she never went to church; she thought it wrong. She called herself an "unattached Christian," and said that people only ought to go to church for praise, but to do their confessions at home. When I left Dalton, she presented me with a little book, which she begged me not to read till I was quite away. It was called "Do you belong to the Hellfire Club?" It was not an allegorical little book, but really and seriously asked the question, saying that, though not generally known, such a club really existed, where the most frightful mysteries were enacted, and that it was justwithin the bounds of possibility that I might secretly belong to it, and if so, &c., &c. A similar little book was once thrust into my hand by a lady at the top of St. James's Street.
On the 29th of October 1866 we left England for Cannes, stopping on the way at Villefranche, that we might visit Ars, for the sake of its venerable Curé.
Tomy Sister."Nov. 1866.—It was a pretty and peculiar drive to Ars: first wooded lanes, then high open country, from whence you descend abruptly upon the village, which, with its picturesque old church, and the handsome wooden one behind it, quite fills the little hollow in the hills. The village itself is almost made up of hotels for the pilgrims, but is picturesque at this season, with masses of golden vine falling over all the high walls. We left the carriage at the foot of the church steps, and ascended through a little square crowded with beggars, as in the time of the Curé.[330]The old church is exceedingly interesting. In the middle of the floor is the grave of the Curé, once surrounded by a balustrade hung with immortelles, which are now in the room where he died. At the sides are all the little chapels he built at the different crises of his life, that of S. Philomene being quite filled with crutches, left by lame persons who have gone away cured. Beyond the old church opens out the handsome but lessinteresting modern building erected by the Empress and the bishops, with a grand baldacchino on red granite pillars, and on the altar a beautiful bas-relief of the Curé carried to heaven by angels. In the old church a missionary was giving the pilgrims (who kept flocking in the whole time) a very beautiful and simple exposition on the life of Christ as a loving Saviour, quite carrying on the teaching of the Curé."At half-past twelve a Sister of Charity came to show the Curé's room. It is railed off, because the pilgrims would have carried everything away, as they have almost undermined the thick walls in their eagerness to possess themselves of the bits of stone and plaster; but you see the narrow bed, the poor broken floor, his chair, his table, his pewter spoon and earthenware pot,—the picture which was defiled by the Demon,—the door at which 'the Grappin' knocked,—the narrow staircase from which he shouted 'Mangeur de truffes,'—the still poorer room downstairs where the beloved Curé lay when all his people passed by to see him in his last sleep,—the little court shaded by ancient elder-trees in which he gave his incessant charities,—and close by the little house of his servant Catherine. She herself is the sweetest old woman, seeming to live, in her primitive life, upon the gleanings and the teaching of the past. She sate on a low stool at Mother's feet, and talked in the most touching way of her dear Curé. When Mother said something about the crowds that came to him, she said, 'I have always heard that when the dear Saviour was on earth, He was so sweet and loving, that people liked to be near Him, and I suppose that now when men are sweet and loving, and so alittle like the dear Saviour, people like to be near them too.' In a small chapel of the school he founded they showed some blood of the Curé in a bottle—'encore coulant.' Many other people we saw who talked of him—'Comme il était gai, toujours gai,' &c. The whole place seemed cut out of the world, in an atmosphere of peace and prayer, like a little heaven: no wonder Roman Catholics like to go into 'Retreat' there."
Tomy Sister.
"Nov. 1866.—It was a pretty and peculiar drive to Ars: first wooded lanes, then high open country, from whence you descend abruptly upon the village, which, with its picturesque old church, and the handsome wooden one behind it, quite fills the little hollow in the hills. The village itself is almost made up of hotels for the pilgrims, but is picturesque at this season, with masses of golden vine falling over all the high walls. We left the carriage at the foot of the church steps, and ascended through a little square crowded with beggars, as in the time of the Curé.[330]The old church is exceedingly interesting. In the middle of the floor is the grave of the Curé, once surrounded by a balustrade hung with immortelles, which are now in the room where he died. At the sides are all the little chapels he built at the different crises of his life, that of S. Philomene being quite filled with crutches, left by lame persons who have gone away cured. Beyond the old church opens out the handsome but lessinteresting modern building erected by the Empress and the bishops, with a grand baldacchino on red granite pillars, and on the altar a beautiful bas-relief of the Curé carried to heaven by angels. In the old church a missionary was giving the pilgrims (who kept flocking in the whole time) a very beautiful and simple exposition on the life of Christ as a loving Saviour, quite carrying on the teaching of the Curé.
"At half-past twelve a Sister of Charity came to show the Curé's room. It is railed off, because the pilgrims would have carried everything away, as they have almost undermined the thick walls in their eagerness to possess themselves of the bits of stone and plaster; but you see the narrow bed, the poor broken floor, his chair, his table, his pewter spoon and earthenware pot,—the picture which was defiled by the Demon,—the door at which 'the Grappin' knocked,—the narrow staircase from which he shouted 'Mangeur de truffes,'—the still poorer room downstairs where the beloved Curé lay when all his people passed by to see him in his last sleep,—the little court shaded by ancient elder-trees in which he gave his incessant charities,—and close by the little house of his servant Catherine. She herself is the sweetest old woman, seeming to live, in her primitive life, upon the gleanings and the teaching of the past. She sate on a low stool at Mother's feet, and talked in the most touching way of her dear Curé. When Mother said something about the crowds that came to him, she said, 'I have always heard that when the dear Saviour was on earth, He was so sweet and loving, that people liked to be near Him, and I suppose that now when men are sweet and loving, and so alittle like the dear Saviour, people like to be near them too.' In a small chapel of the school he founded they showed some blood of the Curé in a bottle—'encore coulant.' Many other people we saw who talked of him—'Comme il était gai, toujours gai,' &c. The whole place seemed cut out of the world, in an atmosphere of peace and prayer, like a little heaven: no wonder Roman Catholics like to go into 'Retreat' there."
We stayed afterwards at Arles, and made the excursion to S. Remy, one of the most exquisitely beautiful places I have ever seen, where Roman remains, grand in form and of the most splendid orange colouring, rise close to the delicate Alpines.
At Cannes we were most fortunate in finding a house exactly suited to our needs—a primitive bastide, approached by a long pergola of vines, on the way to the Croix des Gardes, quite high up in woods of myrtle and pine upon the mountain-side.[331]It was far out of the town and dreadfully desolate at night, but in the daytime there were exquisite views through the woods of the sea and mountains, and a charming terraced garden of oranges and cassia—the vegetation quite tropical. Close to the turn into our pergola was a little shrine of S.François, which gave a name to our cottage, and which the peasants, passing to their work in the forests, daily presented with fresh flowers. Delightful walks led beyond us into the hilly pine woods with a soil of glistening mica, and, if one penetrated far enough, one came out upon the grand but well-concealed precipices of rock known as the Rochers de Bilheres. Just below us lived Lord Mount-Edgecumbe, the "Valletort" of my Harrow days, with hissweet invalid wife, and their three little girls, with the little Valletort of this time, were a perpetual pleasure to my mother in her morning walk to the Croix des Gardes. Old Madame Bœuf, our landlady, used to come up every morning in her large flapping Provençal hat to work with her women amongst the cassia: the sunshine seemed almost ceaseless, and all winter we used to sit with open windows and hear our maid Marguerite carolling her strange patois ballads at her work.