In the present writer's own early days, when the now owner of
Swallowfield was a very young, younger son, she used to hear him and his
sister, Mrs. Brackenbury (the Miss Priscilla of the note), speaking with
affectionate remembrance of the old friend lately gone, who had dwelt at
their very gates; through which friendly gates one is glad, indeed, to
realise what delightful companionship and loving help came to cheer the
end of that long and toilsome life; and when Messrs. Macmillan suggested
this preface the writer looked for her old autograph-book, and at its
suggestion wrote (wondering whether any links existed still) to ask for
information concerning Miss Mitford, and so it happened that she found
herself also kindly entertained at Swallowfield, and invited to visit
the scenes of which the author of 'Our Village' had written with so much
delight.
I think I should like to reverse the old proverb about letting those who
run read, my own particular fancy being for reading first and running
afterwards. There are few greater pleasures than to meet with an
Individuality, to listen to it speaking from a printed page, recounting,
suggesting, growing upon you every hour, gaining in life and presence,
and then, while still under its influence, to find oneself suddenly
transported into the very scene of that life, to stand among its
familiar impressions and experiences, realising another distinct
existence by some odd metempsychosis, and what may--or rather, what
MUST have been. It is existing a book rather than reading it when this
happens to one.
The house in Swallowfield Park is an old English country home, a
fastness still piled up against time; whose stately walls and halls
within, and beautiful century-old trees in the park without, record
great times and striking figures. The manor was a part of the dowry
of Henry the VIII.'s luckless queens. The modern house was built by
Clarendon, and the old church among the elms dates from 1200, with
carved signs and symbols and brasses of knights and burgesses, and names
of strange sound and bygone fashion.
Lady Russell, who had sent the phaeton with the fast-stepping horse to
meet us, was walking in the park as we drove up, and instead of taking
us back to the house, she first led the way across the grass and by the
stream to the old church, standing in its trim sweet garden, where Death
itself seems smiling and fearless; where kind Mary Mitford's warm heart
rests quiet, and 'her busy hand,' as she says herself, 'is lying in
peace there, where the sun glances through the great elm trees in the
beautiful churchyard of Swallowfield.'
The last baronet, Sir Charles, who fought in the Crimea, and who
succeeded his father, Sir Henry, moved the dividing rail so that his old
friend should be well within the shadow of these elm trees. Lady Russell
showed us the tranquil green place, and told us its story, and how the
old church had once been doomed to destruction when Kingsley came over
by chance, and pleaded that it should be spared; and how, when rubbish
and outward signs of decay had been cleared away, the restorers were
rewarded for their piety, by coming upon noble beams of oak,
untouched by time, upon some fine old buried monuments and brasses and
inscriptions, among which the people still say their prayers in the
shrine where their fathers knelt, and of which the tradition is not yet
swept away. The present Lady of the Manor, who loves old traditions, has
done her part to preserve the records for her children.
So Miss Mitford walked from Three Mile Cross to Swallowfield to end her
days, with these kind friends to cheer and to comfort her. Sir Henry
Russell was alive when she first established herself, but he was
already suffering from some sudden seizure, which she, with her usual
impetuosity, describes in her letters as a chronic state of things.
After his death, his widow, the Lady Russell of those days, was her
kindest friend and comforter.
The little Swallowfield cottage at the meeting of the three roads, to
which Mary Mitford came when she left Three Mile Cross, has thrown out
a room or two, as cottages do, but otherwise I think it can be little
changed. It was here Miss Mitford was visited by so many interesting
people, here she used to sit writing at her big table under the 'tassels
of her acacia tree.' When the present Lady of the Manor brought us to
the gate, the acacia flowers were over, but a balmy breath of summer
was everywhere; a beautiful rose was hanging upon the wall beneath the
window (it must have taken many years to grow to such a height), and
beyond the palings of the garden spread the fields, ripening in the
late July, and turning to gold. The farmer and his son were at work with
their scythes; the birds were still flying, the sweet scents were in the
air.
From a lady who had known her, 'my own Miss Anne' of the letters, we
heard something more that day of the author of 'Our Village'; of her
charming intellect, her gift of talk, her impulsiveness, her essential
sociability, and rapid grace of mind. She had the faults of her
qualities; she jumped too easily to conclusions; she was too much
under the influence of those with whom she lived. She was born to be a
victim,--even after her old tyrant father's death, she was more or less
over-ridden by her servants. Neighbours looked somewhat doubtfully on
K. and Ben, but they were good to her, on the whole, and tended her
carefully. Miss Russell said that when she and her brother took refuge
in the cottage, one morning from a storm, while they dried themselves
by the fire, they saw the careful meal carried up to the old lady, the
kidneys, the custard, for her dejeuner a la fourchette.
When Miss Mitford died, she left everything she had to her beloved
K. and to Ben, except that she said she wished that one book from her
well-stocked library should be given to each of her friends. The old
Doctor, with all his faults, had loved books, and bought handsome and
valuable first editions of good authors. K. and Ben also seem to have
loved books and first editions. To the Russells, who had nursed Miss
Mitford, comforted her, by whose gates she dwelt, in whose arms she
died, Ben brought, as a token of remembrance, an old shilling volume
of one of G. P. R. James's novels, which was all he could bear to part
with. A prettier incident was told me by Miss Russell, who once went to
visit Miss Mitford's grave. She found a young man standing there whom
she did not know. 'Don't you know me?' said he; 'I am Henry, ma'am. I
have just come back from Australia.' He was one of the children of the
couple who had lived in the cottage, and his first visit on his return
from abroad had been to the tomb of his old protectress.
I also heard a friend who knew Miss Mitford in her latest days, describe
going to see her within a very few months of her death; she was still
bright and responding as ever, though very ill. The young visitor had
herself been laid up and absent from the invalid's bedside for some
time. They talked over many things,--an authoress among the rest,
concerning whose power of writing a book Miss Mitford seems to have been
very doubtful. After her visitor was gone, the sick woman wrote one of
her delicate pretty little notes and despatched it with its tiny seal
(there it is still unbroken, with its M. R. M. just as she stamped it),
and this is the little letter:--
Thank you, dearest Miss... for once again showing me your fair face by
the side of the dear, dear friend [Lady Russell] for whose goodness
I have neither thanks nor words. To the end of my life I shall go on
sinning and repenting. Heartily sorry have I been ever since you went
away to have spoken so unkindly to Mrs.... Heaven forgive me for it,
and send her a happier conclusion to her life than the beginning might
warrant. If you have an idle lover, my dear, present over to him my
sermon, for those were words of worth.
God bless you all! Ever, most faithfully and affectionately yours,