Story of My Life Part 23

I could not sleep at night and listened through the dressing-room wall.

Suddenly I heard her cry out, and John Gidman stood by my bedside sobbing violently--"You must be told she is worse." I went into the room. She was in violent delirium. Aunt Kitty was trying to calm her with texts of Scripture; Lea was kneeling in her dressing-gown at the foot of the bed. I was determined she should not die. I felt as if I were wrestling for her life. I _could_ not have spared her then. But G.o.d had mercy upon my agony. She became calmer. Suddenly, in the morning, as I was sitting by her, she said, "Augustus, fetch me a piece of bread." I did. She ate it. From that time gradually--very gradually--she dawned back into life from her sixty hours' trance, whilst I was watching over her every minute. Four days afterwards came Easter Eve. When I went in that morning, she was quite herself. "What a beautiful quiet morning,"

she said; "it is just such a day as Easter Eve ought to be. To me this is the most solemn day of all the year, for on it my Saviour was neither on earth nor in heaven, at least in his bodily form.... I am so glad that I learnt Wesley's hymn ("All blessing, glory, honour, praise") before I was ill: I can say it now." I see in my journal that on that afternoon of my darling mother's restoration I walked to the Rectory, and the garden was bright and smiling as ever, in the oak-walks it seemed as if the shadow of him who paced it so often must sometimes be walking still. There was no furniture left in the house except bookcases, and I was astonished then to realise for the first time how bare walls cannot speak to one; it is the objects which they have enclosed that have the human interest.

JOURNAL.

"_April 8, 1855._--The mother has greeted me with 'A blessed Easter to you, darling--Christ is risen.' Last night tears came into her eyes as she remembered that Uncle Julius would never say those words to her again, but to-day she is bright and smiling, and the suns.h.i.+ne outside seems reflected from her. The others have been to church, so I have been alone most of the day in her sick-room."

"_April 9._--In my mother's room most of the day. My Oxford work is sadly hindered; but that is not my first duty."

"_April 14._--The dear mother came downstairs for the first time since her illness, and was delighted with the flowers--the heaths and cinerarias in the window recesses, and the ma.s.ses of violets in the garden. There was much to be told that was new to her, of all that had happened since she went upstairs, but which had to be told very cautiously, for fear of over-excitement. Arthur Stanley, who has been here some days, examined me in my work, and in the afternoon we had a delightful walk through the woods to the farmhouse of the Hole."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LIME, FROM THE GARDEN.]

"_April 15._--Arthur preached in the church on the spies bringing back to the Israelites the fruits of the promised land--going on to describe how the fruits of _our_ promised land were given us in the lives of those who were gone before--that these were the fruits of the Spirit spoken of in three verses of the Bible--verses better known perhaps and more loved than any others by the people of Hurstmonceaux. The first was written on the distant grave of one whom many of them had never seen, but whom all of them had heard of--Augustus, whose fruit was 'gentleness, and meekness, and long suffering.' The second was the verse inscribed on the older of the crosses under their own yew-tree: 'righteousness and truth' were the especial points which Marcus bore. The third was written on the latest and most loved cross: it told of 'wisdom'--that was Julius's fruit."

"_April 16._--I left my darling mother to return to my work at Oxford. I remained with her till John tapped at the door to say the carriage was there. 'G.o.d bless you, my own darling--G.o.d bless you, dearest'--and I was gone, leaving my sweetest one looking after me with a smile upon her face. Oh, what a blessing it has been to leave her thus! How different this leaving Lime might have been, with no sense of home remaining, except in the shadow of the yew-tree and by the crosses in the churchyard!"

I might write of my mother as Chalmers of the d.u.c.h.esse de Broglie: "Her prayers poured forth in her domestic circle, falling upon my ears like the music of Paradise, leave their fragrance behind them, and sweet is their remembrance."

On my way back to Oxford, I first saw the beautiful Empress Eugenie on her pa.s.sage through London to Windsor with the Emperor Napoleon III.

They had a most enthusiastic reception, the streets were thronged everywhere, and it was a very fine sight. Almost immediately after reaching college I was "in the Schools" for "Moderations," but did very well, as I had employed every available moment in preparing myself.

Nevertheless, I was too anxious to go to fetch my own _testamur_, and vividly recall the feeling of ecstasy with which, from my high oriel window, I saw my friend Milligan come waving it round the corner of the High Street. A delightful feature of this term, which I always remember with pleasure, was an excursion by rail to Evesham and its abbey, just when the apple-orchards, with which the whole vale is filled, were in bloom like a great garden. As summer approached, we were frequently on the river. George Sheffield generally "punted" me, and Milligan floated alongside in a canoe. Another expedition of very great interest to me was that to Chalfont St. Giles in Buckinghams.h.i.+re, where I saw the Vatche, the home of my great-great-grandfather, Bishop Hare, who married its heiress, a very attractive and charming place, which was sold by my great-grandfather. The "Hare Mausoleum," a hideous brick building, was then standing, attached to the church, and there Bishop Hare and many of his descendants were buried, the last funeral having been that (in 1820) of Anna-Maria Bulkeley, daughter of my grandfather's sister. The minute descriptions, with which I was familiar, in the letters of Bishop Hare and his widow, gave quite a historic charm to the scenes at Chalfont--the window where Mary Hare sate "in her great house, much too big and good for her, with as few servants as she could make s.h.i.+ft with," and watched her "deare lord carried to church"--the steep lane down which the stately procession, in which "there were no bishops for pall-bearers because it was too cold for them to come into the country,"

pa.s.sed with such difficulty--the manor pew, where Mary Margaret Hare complained over "Laurentia and all the troublesome little children"--the almshouses, built and endowed by the Robert Hare who married Miss Selman.

The installation of Lord Derby as Chancellor and the reception of Disraeli (then still a dandy in ringlets, velvet waistcoat, and prominent gold chains) made the "Commemoration" of this year especially exciting; though my pleasure in it was damped by the sudden news of the failure of Sir John Paul's[104] bank in the Strand, and fear for its effect upon my "real mother" and sister, who lost about two thousand a year by this catastrophe, though it was not this cause which involved them in the irretrievable ruin that afterwards befell them.

The longer I lived at Oxford, the more I learnt how little I could believe anything I heard there. Connected with a college of which many of the members belonged to the _lower_ upper cla.s.ses of society, I had peculiar opportunities for observing how often young men thought it worth while to pretend to a position and acquaintances which did not belong to them. One instance of this is too extraordinary to be omitted.

From the very beginning of February, certain men in Hall (the great place for gossip and scandal) had spoken constantly of a certain Mrs.

Fortescue, who had come to reside in Oxford, an exceedingly clever person and very highly connected. The subject did not interest me in the least, but still I heard of her so often, that I could not help being familiar with her name. Gradually her acquaintance seem to extend; men said, "I don't _exactly_ know Mrs. Fortescue, but my family do"--or "my friend so and so means to introduce me," and so on. Mrs. Fortescue's witty sayings also were frequently repeated and commented upon. After some months it was said that Mrs. Fortescue was going to give a ball, for which there was anxiety to procure invitations--some men "had them, but did not mean to go,"--others were "sure to have them." As I did not wish to go, the subject was of very slight importance to me.

Within a week of the alleged date of Mrs. Fortescue's ball, my friend P.

came late at night to see me. He said, "I have a dreadful thing to tell you. I have a secret to reveal at which you will be aghast.... _I am Mrs. Fortescue!_" Early in the year, observing how apt men were to a.s.sume intimacies which they did not possess, he and one or two other friends had agreed to talk incessantly of one person, a wholly imaginary person, and, while "making her the fas.h.i.+on," see if, very soon, a number of men would not pretend to be intimate with her. Dozens fell into the trap. In a certain cla.s.s of men, every one was afraid of being behind his neighbour in boasting of an intimacy, &c., with one who was praised so highly. They even pretended to have received invitations to the imaginary ball. But the trick had a.s.sumed much greater dimensions than ever was intended at first; many people had been duped whose fury at the discovery would be a serious matter; many Oxford ladies had been asked to the ball, and, in fact, there was nothing to be done _now_ but to go through with the whole drama to the end--the ball must take place!

P. was quite prepared for the emergency of having to represent Mrs.

Fortescue, but positively refused to go through it alone. His object was to implore me to help him out by appearing in some a.s.sumed character.

This I for a long time refused, but at length a.s.sented to get up all the statistics of the neighbouring great house of Nuneham, and to arrive as Miss Harcourt, an imaginary niece of Lady Waldegrave, just come from thence. I was well acquainted with the best Oxford dressmaker, with whom one of my friends lodged, and she undertook to make my dress; while various styles of hair were tried by another person, who undertook that department, to see which produced the most complete disguise.

When the evening of the ball arrived, I took care to reach "Wyatt's Rooms" very early. Only a number of men and a very few ladies were there, when "Miss Harcourt--Miss Amy Leighton" were shouted up the staircase, and I sailed up (with another undergraduate, who represented my somewhat elderly companion) in a white tulle dress trimmed with a little gold lace and looped up with blue cornflowers, a wreath (wreaths were worn then) of the same, and a blue opera-cloak. Mrs. Fortescue, an elderly handsome woman, quite on the _retour_, dressed in crimson satin, came forward to meet me and kissed me on both cheeks, and I was introduced to a lady--a _real_ lady--by whom I sate down. It is impossible to detail all the absurdities of the situation, all the awkward positions we were thrown into (Mrs. Fortescue had engaged her servants, being then in morning toilette, days before). Suffice it to say that the guests a.s.sembled, and the ball and the supper afterwards went off perfectly, and gave boundless satisfaction. I only refused to dance, pretending to have sprained my ankle in coming down in the train some days before; but I limped round the room on the arm of my own doctor (who never discovered me) between the dances, and examined the pictures on the walls. Mrs. Fortescue was inimitable. The trick was never discovered at the time, and would still be a secret, but that a friend, to whom I had revealed the story on promise of _strict secrecy_, repeated it long afterwards to P.'s elder brother. In June my mother visited me at Oxford, on her way to West Malvern, where we had delightful rooms overlooking the Herefords.h.i.+re plains, in the house of "Ph?be Gale," who had long been a valued servant in the family. We much enjoyed delightful drives with the Leycesters in the neighbourhood; also frequently we went to see the Miss Ragsters, two remnants of one of the oldest families in Worcesters.h.i.+re, who, in a great age, were living, very poor, in a primitive farmhouse, with their one servant Betty--"the girl" they always called her, who still wore a pinafore, though she had been in their service forty-seven years. Their life had never varied: they had never seen a railway, and had never even been to Little Malvern. They gave a curious account of the poet Wordsworth coming to luncheon with them.

From Malvern I went to the Wye with Willie Milligan. "Never," as I wrote to my mother, "was there a companion so delightful, so amusing, so charming and good-natured under all circ.u.mstances--and his circ.u.mstances were certainly none of the most brilliant, as he lost all his luggage at the outset, and had to perform the whole journey with nothing of his own but a comb and a tooth-brush." Wherever we went, he made friends, retailing all the local information gained from one person to the next he met, in the most entertaining way. Especially do I remember one occasion at Chepstow. I was drawing the castle, surrounded by about a hundred little children, and he made himself so charming to them, and was so indescribably entertaining, that one after the other of the little things succ.u.mbed, till at last the whole party were rolling on the ground in fits of uncontrollable laughter. On this visit to Chepstow I remember the touching incident of our walking in the churchyard late at night, and seeing a woman bring a number of glow-worms to put upon her child's grave, that she might still see it from the window of her cottage. We saw Tintern, Raglan, Goodrich (the great collection of "Meyrick's Ancient Armour" was there then), and Ross, with its old market-house, still standing, owing to the recent defence of the market-women, who had positively refused to enter a new one which had been built for them. A shorter expedition from Malvern was one which I made with Emma Leycester to Worcester, which resulted in a story I published in a magazine years afterwards--"The Shadows of Old Worcester." In one of the pa.s.sages of the china manufactory we saw a figure of "Tragedy"--a magnificently handsome woman with a wreath of laurel on her head. Was it Mrs. Siddons? "No," said the guide, "it was modelled from a poor girl who used to work here, and who was murdered by her lover _last night_."

From Malvern we drove through the rose-fringed lanes by Ledbury to Hereford, and then went to stay at Tickwood, in Shrops.h.i.+re, with my uncle's old friend Mr. Hull, and Mrs. Butler, my mother's early instructress, who lived there to take care of his only child by his second wife (Miss Rowe)--Rowna--whose great wealth was her only fault in her father's eyes. Afterwards we went to meet our old friends, the Tayleurs of Buntingsdale, at the quaint old Raven Inn at Shrewsbury, and thence proceeded to Llangollen and Valle Crucis. Plas Newydd, the house of "the ladies of Llangollen,"[105] was still in existence--a very ridiculous little place; and "the ladies" had had successors, Miss Andrews and Miss Lolly!--of whom Miss Lolly still survived. A beautiful varied drive by Corwen and Bettwys y Coed took us to the Penrhyn Arms at Capel Curig, where my mother had often been in her childhood, and where, at the bottom of the garden, is the n.o.ble view of Snowdon across lake and moorland, so well known from pictures innumerable. From Llanberis I ascended Snowdon, which in my recollection is--from its innate picturesqueness, not its views--the only mountain in Europe worth ascending, except Soracte. Afterwards we went to the William Stanleys[106] at Penrh?s in Anglesea, and it was a very pleasant visit, as Mrs. William Stanley was a most kind and amusing person, good-natured to young people, and exceedingly pleased with my delight over all she showed me, especially over the rocks--so glorious in colour--near the South Stack lighthouse. It recalls oddly the extreme poverty as to pocket-money in which I spent my youth, when I remember that the sum of ?2 which my Aunt Lucy gave me at Penrh?s was at twenty-one the largest present in money that I had ever yet received in my life. I spent it in the purchase of Lord Lindsay's "Christian Art."

After visiting Penrhyn Castle, we went to take lodgings near the Albert Ways at Conway, of which I recollect nothing remarkable except the exemplification of "cast not your pearls before swine" in the frantic eagerness the pigs at Towen showed to get at the mussels from which the tiny pearls found there (and sold at two s.h.i.+llings an ounce) were being extracted by the pearl-fishers. Our next visit was to Bodelwyddelan, the fine place of Sir John and Lady Sarah Williams. We went afterwards to Alton Towers, Ham in Dovedale, Matlock, and Rowsley--whence I saw Chatsworth and spent several days in drawing the old courts of Haddon Hall.

All through the past winter the Crimean War had been an absorbing interest, people had sobbed in the churches when the prayer for time of war was read, and even those not immediately concerned had waited in agonised expectation for the news from the Alma, Inkermann, the Redan.

While we were at Lichfield came the news of the capture of Sebastopol, announced by the bells of the cathedral, followed by all the churches, and every town and village became gay with flags from every window.

In returning home this year, I felt even more anxious than before to improve and educate myself, and always got up for the purpose as early as I could, recollecting how Chevalier Bunsen, by always getting up four hours before other people, made his year into sixteen months instead of twelve. Beginning to think of colour in sketching now tended to make me even more observant than I had been of the wonderfully artistic elements of the scenery around our home--the long lines of the levels with their fleeting shadows, the delicate softness of the distant downs, the trees embossed in their dark green against the burnt-up gra.s.s of the old deer-park.

JOURNAL.

"_Sept. 24, 1855._--We have had a visit from Miss Rosam, the last of the old Suss.e.x family who once lived at Lime. She said when she was here as a little child the old convent was still standing. She remembered the deep ma.s.sive Saxon (?) archway at the entrance and the large dark hall into which it led.

"'Were there any stories about the place?' I asked.

"'Nothing but about the fish; of course you know that?'

"'No, I don't; do tell me.'

"'Well, I don't say that it's true, but certainly it is very generally believed that the whole of the great fish-ponds were once entirely filled with gold and silver fish, and the night my grandfather died all the fish died too. And then perhaps you do not know about the horse. My grandfather had a very beautiful horse, which he was very fond of, and though it was so old and infirm that it could scarcely drag its legs along, he would not have it made an end of, and it still remained in the field. But the night my grandfather died, a man saw the horse suddenly spring up and race at full gallop over the field, and at the moment my grandfather died the horse fell down and died too.'

"Just now we have a full moon, and the reflections in the pond are so clear that you can see the fish dance in the moonbeams. The mother says, 'It is difficult to realise that this same moon, ever serene and peaceful, is looking down upon all the troubles and quarrels of the earth.'"

"_Sept. 29._--We came in the morning to Eastbourne, which is much altered and enlarged, only a few of the old familiar features left as landmarks--Sergeant Bruce's house, No. 13--O _how_ I suffered there!--Miss Holland's, outside which I used to wait in my agonies of grief and rage--the beach where as a little child I played at building houses."

"_Oct. 4._--In spite of threatening clouds, we drove to Wilmington, whence I walked with Mr. Cooper to Alfriston, a most wild out-of-the-way place, just suited for the beautiful 'effects' of Copley Fielding. The cruciform church, with its battered s.h.i.+ngled spire, stands on a little hill, and, with a few wind-stricken trees around it, is backed by a hazy distance of downs, where the softest grey melts into the green. When we were there, all the clouds were tossed into wild forms, with only a gleam of frightened suns.h.i.+ne struggling through here and there."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALFRISTON.]

"_Oct. 7._--I fear I rather distressed mother to-day by reverting to the Rectory miseries, the recollection of which was aroused by finding an old journal. I will never do it again. My darling mother has been given back to me from the brink of the grave to love and to cherish, and, whatever it costs me, can I ever say anything to cause her even one flush of pain? My will is strong, I know, and it shall be exercised in always ignoring my own troubles and prejudices, and never forgetting to antic.i.p.ate each thought, each wish of hers. Henceforward I am determined to have no separate ident.i.ty, and to be only her reflection."

"_Oct. 25._--Went to see old Mrs. Pinnock. She was lying on her rag-bed in her wretched garret, sadly changed now from the old woman who, two years ago, would go in the spring-time to Lime Wood that she might see the bluebells and listen to the nightingales.

Now her old husband sate by, pointing at her worn, dying form, and exclaiming,'Poor cratur! poor cratur!' She fumbled her poor shrunken hands over the bedclothes and murmured, 'G.o.d bless you, sir; may G.o.d bless you.' They are probably the last words I shall ever hear from her, and she has always been an object of interest.

As I read 'Shadows' this last evening to the mother, I could not help feeling how like some of them my own home reminiscences must some day become, so sad and so softened. But it is no use to think about the future, for which only G.o.d can arrange. 'Good-night, darling, comfort and blessing of my life,' mother said to me to-night. 'I will try not to be too anxious. May you be preserved, and may I have faith. Good-night, my own Birdie.'"

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Chartwell_ (Mr. Colquhoun's), _Oct. 18, 1855._--This is a beautiful neighbourhood.... How every hour of the day have I thought of my sweetest mother, and longed to know what she was doing. We have been so much together this vacation, and so uncloudedly happy, that it is unnatural to be separate; but my darling mother and I are never away from one another in heart, though we so often are in body. And what a blessing it is for me to have left my mother so well, and to feel that she can still take so much interest and be so happy in the old home, and that I may go on cheerily with my Oxford work."

"_Harrow, Oct. 11, 1855._--No one is here (with the Vaughans) except Mr. Munro, whom I find to be the author of 'Basil the Schoolboy,' which he declares to be a true picture of Harrow life in his time. A Mr. Gordon has called, who gave a most curious account of his adventures after having been at school here three days, and how his companions, having stoned their master's lapdog to death, forced him to eat it uncooked!"[107]

"_Portishead, Nov. 10._--How often I have thought of my mother when sitting here in the little bow-window, surrounded by the quaint pictures and china, and the old furniture. Miss Boyle[108] is in her great chair, her white hair brushed back over her forehead. The Channel is a dull lead-colour, and the Welsh mountains are half shrouded in clouds, but every now and then comes out one of those long gleams and lines of light which are so characteristic of this place. The day I arrived, a worn-out clockmaker and a retired architect came to spend the evening and read Shakspeare, and Miss Boyle made herself quite as charming to them as she has doubtless been all summer to the archd.u.c.h.esses and princesses with whom she has been staying in Germany. The next day we went to Clevedon, and saw the old cruciform church above the sea, celebrated in 'In Memoriam,' where Arthur Hallam and his brothers and sisters are buried. From the knoll above was a lovely view of the church--immediately below was a precipice with the white breakers at the bottom, which beyond the church ripple up into two little sandy bays: in the distance, the Welsh mountains, instead of blue, were the most delicate green. We returned by Clapton, where, beside an ancient manor-house, is a little church upon a hill, with a group of old yew-trees."

"_Oxford, Nov. 15._--On Monday, Miss Boyle came in my fly to Bristol, her mission being to break a man she had met with of drunkenness, having made a promise to his wife that she would save him. She said that she had shut herself up for hours in prayer about it, and that, though she did not know in the least how it was to be done, she was on her way to Bristol to _do_ it. One day, as we were walking, we met a woman who knew that she had seen her in a drunken state. 'You will never speak to me again, ma'am,' said the woman; 'I can never dare see you again.'--'G.o.d forbid,' answered Miss Boyle. 'I've been as great a sinner myself in my time, and I can never forsake you because you've done wrong: it is more reason why I should try to lead you to do right.' I had an interesting day at Bath with dear old Mr. Landor, who sent his best remembrances to you--'the best and kindest creature he ever knew.'"

"_Oxford, Nov. 21._--I have been dining at New College and drinking out of a silver cup inscribed--'Ex dono Socii Augustus Hare.'