Story of My Life Part 58

"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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 4 A.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 cras.h.i.+ng 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.

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

We spent an interesting afternoon at Brugg, and drew at K?nigsfelden, 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-fas.h.i.+oned house, 18 Waldhornstra.s.se, 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 the _faisanerie_, and picked ma.s.ses of wild lilies of the valley. In the palace gardens we saw the Grand Duke and Grand d.u.c.h.ess, 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 my_ JOURNAL.

"_July 30, 1866.--Holmhurst._--Another happy summer! How different my grown-up-hood has been to my boyhood: now all suns.h.i.+ne, then all reproach and misery. How strange it is that my dearest mother remembers nothing of those days, _nothing_ of 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lady Augusta Stanley]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALTON BARNES CHURCH.]

In August we spent a fortnight at the Deanery at Westminster with Arthur and Augusta Stanley, the latter _fit les delices_ of 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 G.o.d Almighty's always at whom: _He_ never 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 no _publication_ for it." He thanked mother for her "respectable gift," and said, "I do thank G.o.d 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 thres.h.i.+ng-machine made when out of order was "fierly ridic'lous," and that he was "fierly gallered (frightened) at it"--that he was "obliged to _flagellate_ the 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 the laundry. 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 prompt.i.tude of old Mrs. Ma.s.sie (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. Ma.s.sie drew herself up to her full height and at once made this impromptu--

"Some have many, and some have few; Here _stands_ the mother of twenty-two."

And what she said was true.

My mother turned south from Shrops.h.i.+re, 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 that he 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 Ches.h.i.+re accompanied Mr.

Turner when he appeared leading his daughter. The marriage was p.r.o.nounced 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."

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_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, _you_ like 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.'"

"_Th.o.r.n.ycroft Hall, Ches.h.i.+re, 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 of _carafes_ of 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 a.s.sizes. '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 Th.o.r.n.ycroft 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, _n?e_ Caroline 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 auth.o.r.ess, 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 it accurately. 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 Alc.o.c.k. In a worldly point of view the marriage was all that could be desired. Major Alc.o.c.k was a man of fortune with a fine place in Leicesters.h.i.+re: 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. Alc.o.c.k went to her new home in Leicesters.h.i.+re, 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. Alc.o.c.k as radiantly, perfectly happy. Mrs. Alc.o.c.k'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. Alc.o.c.k as sad and pale, and constantly silent and preoccupied, and in the letters of Mrs. Alc.o.c.k herself there was a reserve and want of all her former cheerfulness, which aroused great uneasiness.

"The Misses T. went to see Mrs. Alc.o.c.k, 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. Alc.o.c.k 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 Leicesters.h.i.+re, with quant.i.ties 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 Leicesters.h.i.+re was shut up, and Major and Mrs. Alc.o.c.k went abroad for the summer. The remedy completely answered. Mrs. Alc.o.c.k 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 Leicesters.h.i.+re just before the hunting season, the busiest time there, and it was decided to establish her cure by taking her to pa.s.s the winter at Rome.

"One of the oldest established hotels in Rome is the H?tel d'Angleterre in the Bocca di Leone. It was to it that travellers generally went first when they arrived at Rome in the old _vetturino_ days; 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 Alc.o.c.k family rolled into the Bocca di Leone and stopped at the door of the H?tel d'Angleterre. Major Alc.o.c.k got out, and Mrs.

Alc.o.c.k 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. Alc.o.c.k 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 Alc.o.c.k, 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. Alc.o.c.k 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. Alc.o.c.k, 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 H?tel d'Angleterre. Towards January, however, Mrs. Alc.o.c.k 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 Alc.o.c.ks' 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. Alc.o.c.k 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 should hope for another opportunity of seeing her. The other gentleman went out at the same time.

"Again medical a.s.sistance was summoned, and again the same cause was ascribed to Mrs. Alc.o.c.k'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 Alc.o.c.k 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. Alc.o.c.k 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. Alc.o.c.k, with the greatest excitement, entreated, implored her husband upon her knees that she might go with him; but Major Alc.o.c.k 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 Alc.o.c.k was back in Rome, bringing his sister with him. When he arrived, Mrs. Alc.o.c.k was gone. She was never, never heard of again. There was no trace of her whatever. All that ever was known of Mrs. Alc.o.c.k was 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. Alc.o.c.k 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. Alc.o.c.k, but as they are evolved entirely from my own imagination, I will not mention them here.

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

From Ches.h.i.+re 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 s.h.i.+pley, and was the mother of William and Charles s.h.i.+pley and of the three female first cousins (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 s.h.i.+pley 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 pa.s.sionate 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 Devons.h.i.+re 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 ingrat.i.tude overwhelmed him, that he was unable to do it.

As an ecclesiastical dignitary, Dean s.h.i.+pley 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 allowed two 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 s.h.i.+pley, 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 clever widow, 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.