house of Lord Kilmorey.[64] It has very little furniture, but some fine
pictures, the best of them, by Gainsborough, representing an Hon.
Francis Needham of the Grenadier Guards, who was poisoned at a
magistrates’ dinner at Salthill in 1773. Lady Fanny Higginson[65] talked
much of their old neighbours the Corbets of Adderley: how, when Lady
Corbet was a child, she squinted very much, and how Dr. Johnson, when
she was introduced to him, said, ‘Come here, you little
Squintifinko’--which gave her the greatest horror of him. When the
family doctor called at Adderley, it was generally just before dinner,
and Lady Corbet used to ask him to stay for it, and he found this so
pleasant that he came very often in this way, merely for the sake of the
dinner; but when his bill came in, she found all these visits charged
like the others. She returned it to him with his visits divided into two
columns, one headed ‘Official’ and the other ‘Officious,’ and she always
afterwards spoke of him as ‘the officious official.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Ford Castle, Oct. 18, 1873._--The long journey and the bitterly cold
drive across the moors from Belford almost made me think before arriving
that absence must have exaggerated the charms of this place; but the
kind welcome of the hostess in the warm library, brilliant with flowers
and colour, soon dispelled all that. There is only a small party here,
what Lady Waterford calls a _pension des demoiselles_--the two Miss
Lindsays (Lady Sarah’s daughters), Mrs. and Miss Fairholme, Lady Taunton
and her daughter, and Lady Gertrude Talbot. All are fond of art and not
unworthy of the place.
“I _should_ like you to see it. No description gives any idea, not so
much of the beautiful old towers, the brilliant flower-beds in the
embrasures of the wall, the deep glen of old beeches, the village
clustering round its tall fountain, and the soft colouring of the
Cheviots and Flodden,--as of the wonderful atmosphere of goodness and
love which binds all the people, the servants, the guests, so
unconsciously around the beautiful central figure in this great _home_.
Each cottage garden is a replica--the tiniest replica--of Lady
Waterford’s own, equally cared for by her; each village child nestles up
to her as she appears, the very tiny ones for the sugar-plums which she
puts into their pockets, the elders to tell her everything as to a
mother. And within the house, everything is at once so simple and so
beautiful, every passage full of pictures, huge ferns, brilliant
geraniums, tall vases, &c. In the evening Lady Waterford sings as
delightfully as ever, and in all the intervals talks as no one else
can--such exquisite stories of olden times, such poetical descriptions
of scenery, and all so truth-inspiring because so wonderfully
simple.”[66]
* * * * *
“_Oct. 19._--You will never guess what I was doing yesterday--preaching
to the children!
“In the morning, to my great surprise, Mr. Neville, the clergyman, came
while Lady Waterford was at the school, to say he had no help that day:
would I help him? There was a service for children in the church: would
I undertake the sermon part? I thought it quite impossible, and utterly
refused at first, only promising to read the Morning Lessons. However,
in the afternoon, when I found it was not only wished but _wanted_, I
consented. I took one of Neale’s Sermons as a foundation, and then
discoursed--half story, half sermon; the story being of the departure of
the swallows from Etal and Ford and Flodden at this time of year; the
training from their parents--so much depending upon whether they
attended or not, whether they practised their wings in preparation for
the long journey or were idle; then of the temptations they had to
idleness, &c.; of the journey, the crossing the sea (of death in the
moral), of the difficulty of crossing alone, of the clinging of some to
the mast of a ship (the Saviour), which bore them through the
difficulties. I was dreadfully alarmed at the idea, but, having once
begun, had no difficulty whatever, and it all came quite fluently
without any seeking, though beforehand I could think of nothing to say;
so that Lady Waterford said the only fault the children would find was
that it was so much longer than their usual sermons. There was a great
congregation of children, and all the guests in the house, and many of
the servants.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Oct. 16._--Mrs. Fairholme talked of her visit to Jedburgh--that she
had said to the old man who showed it, ‘Do you know, I admire your abbey
a great deal more than Melrose.’--‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there is no doubt it
is a great deal the finer; but then you know, Ma’am, Sir Walter has cast
such a halloo over Melrose that it has thrown everything else into the
shade.’”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 17._--Mrs. Fairholme brought down a beautiful miniature of an
unknown lady to breakfast, which was the subject of much discussion.
Lady Waterford said how she had designed a series of drawings for the
whole ‘Story of a Picture.’
“1. A Louis XIV. beauty sitting to a painter, with all her adorers--a
whole troop of them--behind her, quite beautiful, radiant, and
vain-glorious.
“2. The portrait hanging in the room in another generation.
“3. A young girl _à l’Empire_, with her waist in her mouth, waving her
hand towards the portrait, and telling the servant to take that ugly old
picture up to the garret.
“4. Boys in the garret shooting at the old picture as a target.
“‘Do you know,’ said Lady Waterford to-day, ‘that Jane Ellice has got
one convert to her teetotalism; and do you know who that is? That is
_me_. I have not touched wine for six months. I think it is good for the
household. They used to say, if they saw me as strong as a horse, “Ah!
there, look at my lady; it is true she is as strong as a horse, but then
she always has all the wine she wants,” but now they say, “My lady has
no wine at all, and yet you see she is as strong as a horse.”’
“Mrs. Fairholme spoke of Curramore, and how she disliked somebody who
pretended that the beautiful terraces there were designed by herself and
not by Lady Waterford. With her generous simplicity, Lady Waterford
said, ‘Oh, I don’t see why you should do that at all: I think it was
rather a compliment, for it showed she admired the terraces, or she
would not have wished it to be supposed that they were due to her.’
“Miss Fairholme was tired. ‘Now do rest,’ Lady Waterford said--‘there is
the sofa close by you--qui vous tend les bras;’ and then she talked to
us of old Lady Balcarres, ‘the mother of Grandmama Hardwicke’--the
severe mother, who, when one of her little boys disobeyed her, ordered
the servants to fling him into the pond in front of the house. He
managed to scramble out again; she bade them throw him in a second time,
and a second time he got out, and, when she ordered it a third time, he
exclaimed in his broad Scotch accent, ‘Woman, wad ye droun yer ain son?’
“In the afternoon we were to have gone to the Heathpool Lynn, but did go
to Langley Ford by mistake--a very long walk, after leaving the
carriage, up a bleak moorland valley. I walked chiefly with Miss
Lindsay. She talked of the extraordinary discovery of the well at Castle
Hedingham by ‘a wise woman’ by the power of the hazel wand--the hazel
twig bending on the right spot, not only upon the ground itself, but
upon the representation of it on the map. She talked of the blind and
dumb Sabbatarianism of the Presbyterians. She asked a respectable poor
woman how she liked the new preacher. ‘Wad I presume?’ she replied.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 18._--This morning Lady Waterford wished that the Misses Lindsay
had been dressed alike even in details. ‘It is a law of nature, I think,
that sisters should dress alike. A covey of partridges are all alike;
they do not want to have feathers of different colours; and why not
children of the same family?’
[Illustration: LANGLEY FORD, IN THE CHEVIOTS.][67]
“We had a charming walk to Etal in the afternoon--lovely soft lights on
the distant hills, and brilliant reflections of the autumnal foliage in
the Till. We went to the castle, and then down the glen by St. Mary’s
Oratory and Well. Lady W. talked of the beauty of the sedges and of
their great variety--of the difficult law, or rather no law, of
reflections. Then of marriages--of the number of widows being so much
greater than that of widowers, and of the change which the loss of a
husband made in all the smallest details of life: of the supreme
desolation of Lady Charlotte Denison, ‘after a honeymoon of forty-three
years.’ Old Lady Tankerville was of another nature. She was urging a
widowed friend to do something. ‘Oh, but my cap, my cap!’ groaned the
friend. ‘Comment,’ exclaimed Lady Tankerville, ‘c’est le vrai bonnet de
la liberté.’
“Speaking of complexions--‘My grandmother used to say,’ said Mrs.
Fairholme, ‘that beauty “went out” with open carriages. “Why, you are
just like men, my dear,” she said, “with your brown necks, and your
rough skins, and your red noses. In our days it was different; young
ladies never walked, ate nothing but white meat, and never washed their
faces. They covered their faces with powder, and then put cold cream on,
and wiped it off with a flannel: that was the way to have a good
complexion.’”
“‘I think it was Henri III.,’ said Lady Waterford, ‘who used to go to
sleep with raw veal chops on his cheeks, and to cover his hands with
pomade, and have them tied up to the top of the bed by silk cords, that
they might be white in the morning.’”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 21._--Lady Waterford talked of her maid Rebekah, who lived with
her so long. ‘The mistake was that we were together as girls and used to
romp together; and so, when I married, she thought she was to rule me.
But she became the most dreadful tyrant: Tina used to say I wore her as
a hair-shirt.’”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 23._--Lady Waterford talked of ‘Grandmama Hardwicke’--how
terrified she was of robbers: that one day, when she was going to cross
a wide heathy common, she said, ‘If any one comes up to the carriage, I
shall give up all I have at once: I shall give him no chance of being
violent.’ Soon after, a man rode up. ‘Oh, take my money, but spare my
life,’ exclaimed Lady Hardwicke, and threw her purse at him. ‘My good
woman, I don’t want your purse,’ said the man, who was a harmless
traveller.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 24._--Lord Houghton arrived. He is rather crusty, but most
amusing. His conversation is always interesting, even when no one else
can speak, and he seems to be saying, with Sydney Smith, to the art
circle here--‘My dears, it’s all right; you keep with the dilettanti: I
go with the talkettanti.’ He talked of Alnwick. ‘It was there I first
met Père Hyacinthe. He did not strike me as anything remarkable. One
evening he gave us a “Meditation.” It was just a falling into a topic
and going on upon it; but nothing original or particular. I heard his
sermons at Rome. He used to say a thing and then back out of it; but
under the pulpit sat three Inquisitors, and they were finding him out
all the time. One thing he said--speaking of religious differences--was,
“N’oublions jamais que le premier crime du monde était une querelle
entre deux sacerdos.”’
“Lord Houghton talked of the Bonapartes, and of the graves of Josephine
and Hortense at Rueil, and of Madame Mère. ‘I had a very narrow miss of
seeing Madame Mère, and I am very sorry I did not do it, for it would
only have cost a scudo. She was a very long time dying, it was a kind of
lying in state, and for a scudo the porter used to let people in behind
a screen which there was at the foot of the bed, and they looked at her
through the joinings. I was only a boy then, and I thought there was
plenty of time, and put it off; but one day she died.’
“Lord Houghton also said--
“‘One of the prettiest ghost stories I ever heard is that of General
Radowitz. He was made Governor of Frankfort, and not being able to go
himself, and having servants who had lived with him a long time and knew
all his tastes, he sent them on before him to secure a suitable house
and get everything ready. They chose an excellent house, with a large
garden full of lilacs and laburnums, overlooking the glacis. When
General and Madame Radowitz arrived some time after, they found
everything as they wished, and began to question their old servants as
to how they had got on, and especially as to the neighbours. The
servants said that the next villa was inhabited by a person who was
quite remarkable--a lady who was always known in Frankfort as the
“weisse Frau,”--a very sweet, gentle person, who was full of charity and
kindness, and greatly beloved. She had, however, quite lost her memory
as to the past since the death, very long ago, of her lover in battle:
she had even forgotten his name, and answered to all questions about him
or her own past, “Ich weiss nicht! ich weiss nicht!” but always with a
sweet sad smile. And she had lived in the place so long, that, every one
belonging to her having passed away, no one really knew her history.
Yet, while her mind was gone as to the past, as to the practical present
she was quite herself, went to market and transacted her own affairs.
“‘Gradually the confidential maid of Madame Radowitz made friends with
the servants of the “weisse Frau”--for the gardens of the two houses
joined--and from servants’ gossip the Radowitz family learnt a good deal
about her, and from all around they heard of her as greatly respected,
but always the same, sad and sweet, always dressed in white, never
remembering anything.
“‘One day the “weisse Frau,” who had taken a great fancy to the maid of
Madame Radowitz, invited her to come to her at twelve o’clock the next
day: she said she expected some one; indeed, she pressed the maid to
come without fail. The maid told her mistress, who said certainly she
had better go; she should on no account wish so excellent a person as
the “weisse Frau” to be disappointed.
“‘When the maid went, she found the little salon of the “weisse Frau” in
gala decoration, the table laid and bright with flowers, and places set
for three. The Frau was not in her usual white dress, but in a curious
old costume of rich brocade, which was said to have been intended for
her wedding-dress. She still said she expected some one, but when asked
who it was, looked distressed and bewildered, and only said “Ich weiss
nicht!”
“‘As it drew near twelve o’clock she became greatly agitated--she said
_he_ was coming. At length she threw the windows wide open, and gazing
out into the street, looked back and said, “Er kommt! er kommt!” She had
a radiant expression no one remembered to have seen before; her eyes
sparkled, every feature became animated--and as the clock struck twelve,
she went out upon the landing, appeared to enfold some one invisible in
her arms, and then walking very slowly back into the room, exclaimed
“Hoffmann,” and sank down dead!
“‘In the supreme moment of life she had remembered the long-forgotten
name.’
* * * * *
“On Wednesday Lady Waterford took her books and drawing, and went to the
forge to spend the afternoon with ‘Frizzle’--a poor bedridden woman
there, to whom _thus_, not by a rapid visit, she brings enough sunshine
and pleasure once every week to last for the other six days. Often she
sings by the bedside, not only hymns, but a whole variety of things. I
drove Mrs. Fairholme to the Routing Lynn, and we came in for one of the
fiercest storms I ever knew; not rain or snow, but lumps of ice, an inch
and a half long, blowing straight upon us from the Cheviots. Lady
Waterford came in delighted. ‘I do enjoy a difficult walk. When it is
winter, and the ground is deep in snow and the wind blowing hard, I
steal out and take a walk and enjoy it. I try to steal out unobserved; I
do not like the servants to get into a state about me, but I am
generally betrayed afterwards by a wet petticoat or something.’”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 25._--Last night Lord Houghton talked much about Mrs. Harcourt’s
diaries, which he had edited (she was lady in waiting to Queen
Charlotte), but the royal family had cut out so much as to make them
not worth publishing. When the poor Princesses heard of another German
prince marrying, they used to say in a despairing tone, ‘Another chance
lost.’
“At Weymouth, Mrs. Harcourt described going to see the royal family in
the evening. ‘I ventured,’ she said, ‘to express my regret that the
Queen should have had so unfavourable a morning for her water
expedition,’ whereat Prince William somewhat coarsely replied, ‘I only
wish the accursed bitch would have spewed her soul up, and then we
should have had some peace in the house.’
“The Duke of York was the only one of his sons the King really cared
for, and he said that the Duke’s faults were the cause of his madness.
“This morning, before leaving, Lord Houghton talked of Howick, that he
thought it a very dull place, while Lady Waterford and I maintained that
it was a most pleasant, attractive family home. He said the Greys were
very self-important but not conceited: that he agreed with Charles
Buller, who said, ‘No, the Greys are certainly not conceited: they only
demand of you that you should concede the absolute truth of one single
proposition, which is, that it has pleased Providence in its inscrutable
wisdom to endow one family with every conceivable virtue and talent,
and, this once conceded, the Greys are really rather humble than
otherwise, because they feel they do not come up to their
opportunities.’
“He said, ‘It is very interesting to remember that all the beasts are
Saxon, but when they become meat they become Norman.’
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Raby Castle, Oct. 31, 1873._--My visit here has been very pleasant,
the Duchess cordial, and a delightful party. It includes Count Beust,
the Austrian Ambassador, the Duchess of Bedford and Lady Ela, Sir James
and Lady Colville, Mr. and Mrs. Leo Ellis, Mr. Doyle, Mr. Burke, Lady
Chesham and her daughter, Lord and Lady Boyne, Lord Napier and his son,
Henry Cowper (most amusing), Mr. Duncombe Shafto, and several others;
but my chief pleasure has been making friends with young Lord Grimston,
whom I think out and out one of the very nicest fellows I ever met.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Raby Castle, Nov. 1._--The first morning I was here, as I was walking
on the terraced platform of the castle with Lady Chesham, she talked of
the silent Cavendishes, and said it was supposed to be the result of
their ancestor’s marriage with Rachel, Lady Russell’s daughter; that
after her father’s death she had always been silent and sad, and that
her descendants had been silent and sad ever since. ‘Lord Carlisle and
his brother were also silent. Once they travelled abroad together, and
at an inn in Germany slept in the same room, in which there was also a
third bed with the curtains drawn round it. Two days after, one brother
said to the other, “Did you see what was in that bed in our room the
other night?” and the other answered, “Yes.” This was all that passed,
but they had both seen a dead body in the bed.’
“The Duchess expects every one to devote themselves to _petits jeux_ in
the evening, and many of the guests do not like it. There is also a book
in which every one is expected to write something when they go away.
There is one column for complaints: you are intended to complain that
your happy visit has come to an end, or something of that kind. There is
another column of ‘Why you came’--to which the natural answer seems to
be ‘Because I was asked.’ Some one wrote--
‘To see their Graces
And to kill their grouses.’
[Illustration: RABY CASTLE.]
* * * * *
“I have, however, really enjoyed my visit very much indeed, and on
taking leave just now I wrote--
‘In the desert of life, so dismal and wide,
A charming oasis is sometimes descried,
Where none are afraid their true feelings to own,
And wit never takes a satirical tone;
Where new roots of affection are planted each hour,
By courtesy, kindness, and magical power;
Where fresh friendships are formed, and destined to last,
In a golden chain fettered and rivetted fast.
Such a garden is Raby:--those who gather its flowers,
In grateful remembrance will think of the hours
Which, enjoyed, do not vanish, but seem to display
In riplets of silver the wake of their way.’
“One evening I told a story, unfortunately; for if I ever afterwards
escaped to my room after five o’clock, there came a tap and a
servant--‘Their Graces want you to come down again’--always from their
insatiable love of stories.”
* * * * *
“_Nov._ 7, 1873, _Bretton_.--After three days with the dear cousins at
Ravensworth, I am glad to find myself again in this pleasant house,
where I have been rapturously welcomed by the children, especially by
little Hubert. I have found the Motleys here. He is very agreeable; and
the daughters, especially Mrs. Ives,[68] to whom her husband left £6000
a year after one month of married life, are very pleasant. Motley was
shut up for a long time in his room the other day, and when he came in
announced that he had just finished the preface (which was the winding
up) of his new book. All the other ladies began fulsome compliments, but
Miss Susie Motley, jumping up and throwing her arms round his neck,
exclaimed, ‘Oh, you dear foolish old thing, how could you go and spend
so much time over what you may be quite sure nobody will ever read?’
Lady Margaret has just said--
“‘Now, Mr. Hare, what do you do with your eyes(_i_’s)?’
“‘Dot them.’
“‘Then why don’t I dot mine? Now there is an opportunity for you to make
a pretty speech.’
“‘I don’t know how.’
“‘Why, how stupid you are! Because they are capital eyes (_i_’s). And
now, having provided thus much food for your mind, I will go and look
after your body by ordering the dinner.’
“I was very sorry to leave the happy cordial party at Ravensworth of
eleven young cousins, most easy to get on with certainly, though I had
never seen some of them before. But, directly I arrived, one of them
came forward and said, ‘Please remember, Augustus, that my name is only
Nellie, and my sisters are Har and Pem and Vicky, and my cousins are,’
&c. At Lamesley Church we had the oddest sermon, with such sentences
as--‘Our first father would insist upon eating sour fruit, and has set
all his descendants’ teeth on edge ever since.’”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Highclere Castle, Nov. 12, 1873._--This is a beautiful park, with
every variety of scenery, hill, valley, woods, with an undergrowth of
rhododendron, a poetical lake! and is so immense--thirteen miles
round--that one never goes out of it, and rather feels the isolation of
the great house in the centre, which, though very handsome, is not equal
to the place. Lady Carnarvon is very lovely and winning, and boundlessly
interesting to listen to: one understands Mr. Delane saying that he
believed that there could be no successor to Lady Palmerston till he saw
Lady Carnarvon. She says that she has hitherto been too exclusive; that
henceforth she shall wish to fill her house more with people of every
shade--‘for Carnarvon’s sake.’ As I watch her, I am perpetually reminded
of Longfellow’s lines--
“‘Homeward serenely she walked, with God’s benediction upon her;
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.’
“The guests are Sir Stafford, Lady, and Miss Northcote, Mr. and Mrs.
Chandos Leigh, Mr. Herman Merivale, the Charles Russells, and Mr.
Forester and his son and daughter-in-law, all pleasant people, yet on
the whole not so well-fitting a party as I have usually fallen in with.
The little daughter of the house--Winifred--is the most delightful and
unspoilt of children.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Highclere, Nov. 13._--Mr. Herman Merivale told us--
“A captain was crossing to America in his ship, with very few sailors
on board. One day one of them came up to him on the deck and said that
there was a strange man in his cabin--that he could not see the man’s
face, but that he was sitting with his back to the door at the table
writing. The captain said it was impossible there could be any one in
his cabin, and desired the sailor to go and look again. When he came up,
he said the man was gone, but on the table was the paper on which he had
written, with the ink still wet, the words--‘Steer due south.’ The
captain said that, as he was not pressed for time, he would act on the
mysterious warning. He steered due south, and met with a ship which had
been long disabled and whose crew were in the last extremity.
“The captain of the disabled ship said that one of his men was a very
strange character. He had himself picked him up from a deserted ship,
and since then he had fallen into a cataleptic trance, in which, when he
recovered, he declared that he had been in another ship, begging its
captain to come to their assistance. When the man who had been sent to
the cabin saw the cataleptic sailor, he recognised him at once as the
man he had seen writing.
“Mr. Merivale said that a case of the same kind had happened to himself.