“Then I asked her of her past. She said she had been the daughter of a
planter in Havannah, but her fine voice induced her, against the will of
her family, early to take to a public life. At the Exhibition of 1851
she (as Mademoiselle Mori) sang the anthem of which Jenny Lind sang one
verse. She afterwards became a sculptress, and studied under Gibson at
Rome (and she described his peculiar studio accurately). She was his
only female pupil, and had the charge of his studio. He taught her his
mode of colouring marble, and in her statue of ‘Waiting for the Spring,’
she used it in colouring the primroses and violets in a girl’s lap. The
Queen bought this statue in the Exhibition building of 1862 before the
Exhibition opened. Then she married Mr. L. and went to Paris.
“‘While I was in Paris,’ she said, ‘a very curious thing happened to me.
I gave birth to three boys at once. When such an event occurs in France,
the sovereigns are always god-parents, and the Emperor and Empress were
pleased to have the christening of my three boys in Notre Dame, where
they stood sponsors at the font.’--‘And are the boys all dead?’ I said.
‘Oh, dear no, they are all alive.’--‘Then where in the world are they?’
I said. ‘Oh, they live with the Empress: she would not part with them,
and my three boys are her little pages. Now they are gone with her into
Spain to see her mother.’
“She then described how the Empress often sent her money to go down to
Chislehurst to see her boys, and how the Prince Imperial often called to
see her, and called her ‘Grannie’ because of the boys, or left her a £10
note. ‘I should have gone at once to the Empress had she been in
England,’ said Mrs. L., ‘but I would have died rather than have begged
from any one: I would have died on a doorstep.’--‘Then what made you
confide in me?’ I asked. ‘Oh, surely you must see that,’ she replied.
‘Of course you must see that. It was the likeness. Of course people must
have told you of the great, the wonderful likeness before. I was quite
prepared for death, I had made up my mind to die, and then God in His
great mercy sent the likeness of my Emperor to me; and I knew then that
God did not mean me to die yet.’
“She wants to paint a picture in memory of what she calls my ‘saving
her.’[265]
“On the 18th, I had an interesting visit to Apsley House, for which the
Duke had sent me the following order:--‘Admit Mr. Hare to see Apsley
House on any day _on which the street outside is dry_.’ The street was
quite dry, and, moreover, I went in a cab and arrived perfectly spick
and span; but the servant laughed as he produced a pair of huge list
slippers to go on over my boots, before I was allowed to go into any of
the rooms. ‘His Grace left these himself, and desired you should wear
them when you came.’ Yet the floors of Apsley House are not even
polished.
“On the 19th I went to Lady Ducie’s, to see the Macdonald family act the
Pilgrim’s Progress. They go through the whole of the second part, George
Macdonald,[266] his wife, his twelve children, and two adopted children.
Christiana (the eldest daughter) was the only one who acted well.
Nevertheless, the whole effect was touching, and the audience cried most
sympathetically as Christiana embraced her children to go over the great
river.
“On the 21st there was a delightful party at Holland House to meet the
Prince of Wales, and on Wednesday I was thankful to come home.
“Never has little Holmhurst been pleasanter than this year, and I have
so enjoyed being alone, the repose of the intense quietude, the radiance
of the flowers, the delicious sea-breezes through windows open to the
ground, the tame doves flitting and cooing in the branches of the tall
lime-tree.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_August 6, 1877._--I came home on Wednesday week, and have been alone
ever since, and over head and ears in work. I have seen nobody except
last Tuesday, when, though I thought no one knew I was at home,
fourteen afternooners appeared. Miss Hamilton, who has taken a fancy to
do my portrait, has done it very cleverly against a window, with ivy
hanging down outside, only it is a sentimental suggestion of
‘He sat at the window all day long
And watched the falling leaves.’”
[Illustration: HOLMHURST, THE POULTRY-YARD.]
* * * * *
“_August 19._--I have had a pleasant visit of three days to Cobham, and
felt much inclined to accede to Lord and Lady Darnley’s wish at the end,
that I would consider my visit just begun, and stay another three days.
It is indeed a glorious old place externally, and the gardens and
immense variety of walks under grand old trees, are enchanting in hot
weather. I had many happy ‘sittings out’ and talks with Lady Darnley,
and could not sufficiently admire, though I always observe it, how her
perfectly serene nature enables her to carry out endless people-seeing,
boundless literary pursuit, and inexhaustible good works, without ever
fussing herself or any one else, leaving also time to enter into all the
minute difficulties of her friends in the varied gyrations of their
lives.... I was taken to see Cowling Castle, a romantic old place; just
on the edge of those marshes of the Thames which Dickens describes so
vividly. We also saw his house, close to Dover road.”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Walton Heath, Oct. 6._--After a delightful visit from Harry Lee at
Holmhurst, I have come here to Miss Davenport Bromley at a quaint
cottage, partly built out of a church, in a corner of the vast Walton
Heath, but full of artistic comfort and brightness within. We drove on
Thursday to Box Hill, which is most beautiful, the high steep chalky
ground covered with such a luxuriance of natural wood, box grown into
trees and the billows of pink and blue distance so wonderfully luxuriant
and wooded. The time of year is quite beautiful, and all the last
festival of nature in the clematis wreaths and the bryony with its red
berries dancing from tree to tree.
“We have been to see a quaint old house of the Heathcotes. There is a
great stone hall with a high gallery, from which a young lady threw
herself in her rage at her lover marrying some one else, and was killed
on the spot. Her picture hangs on the staircase wall, and her ghost
walks on the stairs, pretty, in white, something like a shepherdess. A
housemaid cut a great cross in the picture, ‘to let the ghost out,’ as
the old woman who showed the house said, and the hole has never been
mended. This country is full of little traditions. There is a green lane
close by, down which a headless lady walks, and a phantom coach drives
along the road: a countryman who met old M. de Berg on the common
declared that he had seen it--that it had driven over him.
“Yesterday we went to Gatton (Lord Monson’s), which formerly belonged to
Sir Mark Wood. It is a curious place: the ugly church fitted inside with
beautiful Flemish carving and glass, and the house having a hall of
coloured marbles, copied from the Corsini Chapel at Rome--minus the
upper story.
“I have much enjoyed learning to know Miss Bromley better. She is the
kindest of women, wonderfully clever and full of insight into every
minutest beauty of nature. Her devotion to animals, especially pugs, is
a passion. Another pleasure has been finding Mrs. Henry de Bunsen here.
She told me--
“‘There was, and there is still, living in Cadogan Place, a lady of
middle age, who is clever, charming, amiable, even handsome, but who has
the misfortune of having--a wooden leg. Daily, for many years, she was
accustomed to amble every morning on her wooden leg down Cadogan Place,
and to take the air in the Park. It was her principal enjoyment.
“‘One day she discovered that in these walks she was constantly followed
by a gentleman. When she turned, he turned: where she went, he went: it
was most disagreeable. She determined to put an end to it by staying at
home, and for some days she did not go out at all. But she missed her
walks in the Park very much, and after a time she thought her follower
must have forgotten all about her, and she went out as before. The same
gentleman was waiting, he followed her, and at length suddenly came up
to her in the Park and presented her with a letter. He said that, as a
stranger, he must apologise for speaking to her, but that he must
implore her to take the letter, and read it when she got home: it was of
great importance. She took the letter, and when she got home she read
it, and found that it contained a violent declaration of love and a
proposal of marriage. She was perfectly furious. She desired her lawyer
to enclose the letter to the writer, and say that she could not find
words to describe her sense of his ungentlemanly conduct, especially
cruel to one afflicted as she was with a wooden leg.
“‘Several years elapsed, and the lady was paying a visit to some friends
in the country, when the conversation frequently turned upon a friend of
the house who was described as one of the most charming, generous, and
beneficent of mankind. So delightful was the description, that the lady
was quite anxious to see the original, and was enchanted when she heard
that he was likely to come to the house. But when he arrived, she
recognised with consternation her admirer of the Park. He did not,
however, recur to their former meeting, and after a time, when she knew
him well, she grew to esteem him exceedingly, and at last, when he
renewed his proposal after an intimate acquaintance, she accepted him
and married him.
“‘He took her to his country-house, and for six weeks they were
entirely, uncloudedly happy. Then there came a day upon which he
announced that he was obliged to go up to London on business. His wife
could not go with him because the house in Cadogan Place was dismantled
for the summer. “I should regret this more,” he said, “but that where
two lives are so completely, so entirely united as ours are, there ought
to be the most absolute confidence on either side. Therefore, while I am
away, I shall leave you my keys. Open my desk, read all my letters and
journals, make yourself mistress of my whole life. Above all,” he said,
“there is one cupboard in my dressing-room which contains certain
memorials of my past peculiarly sacred to me, which I should like you to
make yourself acquainted with.” The wife heard with concern of her
husband’s intended absence, but she was considerably buoyed up under the
idea of the three days in which they were to be separated by the thought
of the very interesting time she would have. She saw her husband off
from the door, and as soon as she heard the wheels of his carriage die
away in the distance, she clattered away as fast as she could upon her
wooden leg to the dressing-room, and in a minute she was down on all
fours before the cupboard he had described.
“‘She unlocked the cupboard. It contained two shelves. On each shelf was
a long narrow parcel sewn up in canvas. She felt a tremor of horror as
she looked at them, she did not know why. She lifted down the first
parcel, and it had a label on the outside. She trembled so she could
scarcely read it. It was inscribed--“In memory of my dear wife Elizabeth
Anne, who died on the 24th of August 1864.” With quivering fingers she
sought for a pair of scissors and ripped open the canvas, and it
contained--a wooden leg!
“‘With indescribable horror she lifted down the other parcel, of the
same form and size. It also bore a label--“In memory of my dearest wife
Wilhelmine, who died on the 6th of March 1869,” and she opened it, and
it contained--another wooden leg!
“‘Instantly she rose from her knees. “It is evident,” she said, “that I
am married to a Blue Beard--a monster who _collects_ wooden legs. This
is not the time for sentiment, this is the time for action,” and she
swept her jewels and some miniatures that she had into a handbag and she
clattered away on her own wooden leg by the back shrubberies to the
highroad--and there she saw the butcher’s cart passing, and she hailed
it, and was driven by the butcher to the nearest station, where she just
caught the next train to London, intending to make good her escape that
night to France and to leave no trace behind her.
“‘But she had not consulted Bradshaw, and she found she had some hours
to wait in London before the tidal train started. Then she could not
resist employing them in going to reproach the people at whose house she
had met her husband, and she told them what she had found. To her
amazement they were not the least surprised. “Yes,” they said, “yes, we
thought he ought to have told you: we do not wonder you were astonished.
Yes, indeed, we knew dear Elizabeth Anne very well; she was indeed a
most delightful person, the most perfect of women and of wives, and when
she was taken away, the whole light seemed blotted out of Arthur’s life,
the change was so very terrible. We thought he would never rally his
spirits again; but then, after two years, he met dearest Wilhelmine, to
whom he was first attracted by her having the same affliction which was
characteristic of her predecessor. And Wilhelmine was perhaps even a
more charming person than Elizabeth Anne, and made her husband’s life
uncloudedly happy. But she too was, alas! early snatched away, and then
it was as if the whole world was cut from under Arthur’s feet, until at
last he met you, with the same peculiarity which was endeared to him by
two lost and loved ones, and we believe that with you he has been even
more entirely, more uncloudedly happy than he was either with Wilhelmine
or Elizabeth Anne.
“‘And the wife was so charmed by what she heard, that it gave quite a
new aspect to affairs. She went home by the next train. She was there
when her husband returned; and ever since they have lived perfectly
happily between his house in the country and hers in Cadogan Place.’
“Mrs. De Bunsen said that a cousin of hers was repeating this story when
dining at the Balfours’. Suddenly he saw that his host and hostess were
both telegraphing frantic signals to him, and by a great effort he
turned it off. The lady of the wooden leg and her husband were both
amongst the guests.”
* * * * *
“_Milford Cottage, Oct. 8._--I came here with Miss Bromley on Saturday
to visit Mrs. Greville and her most engaging mother, Mrs. Thellusson. It
is a red house, standing almost in the village street, but with a
French-looking garden behind, with clipped hedges and orange trees in
tubs. It was left to Mrs. Greville by her husband, an old gentleman whom
she married when the Thellussons were ruined, and he said, ‘You had
better marry me; there is nothing else that I can do for you.’ He always
treated her with the greatest generosity and kindness, but died very
suddenly, intending to leave his wife very rich. There was, however,
some mistake about the will, and she only inherited this cottage and
just enough to live upon. I found at Milford, Lady Elizabeth Bryan, a
Paget, who goes out visiting with four dogs, one of whom, Constance
Kent, is most beautiful, and she has adopted a little cousin and
presented her with six-and-thirty dolls. I went to see the adopted
daughter in bed; two little dogs were cuddled in her bosom, and seven
dolls lay at her feet with their heads out. Lately, the little girl has
displayed signs of vanity, paraded her small person before a mirror, and
exulted in fine clothes, and on these occasions she is always dressed in
‘Sukey,’ a little workhouse girl’s gown, to remind her that ‘in the
sight of God she is no better.’
“This afternoon I have been with Mrs. Greville to Mr. Tennyson at
Haselmere. It is a wild, high, brown heath, with ragged edges of birch,
and an almost limitless view of blue Sussex distances. Jammed into a
hollow is the house, a gothic house, built by Mr. Knowles, the editor of
the _Nineteenth Century_--‘that young bricklayer fellow that Alfred is
so fond of,’ as Mr. Carlyle calls him. Though the place is a bleak,
wind-stricken height, where the flowers in the garden can never sit
still, the house is pleasant inside and well and simply furnished, but
is without any library whatever. Tennyson is older looking than I
expected, so that his _unkempt_ appearance signifies less. He has an
abrupt, bearish manner, and seems thoroughly hard and _un_poetical: one
would think of him as a man in whom the direst prose of life was
absolutely ingrained. Mrs. Greville kissed his hand as he came in, which
he received without any protest. He asked if I would like to go out, and
we walked round the gardens. By way of breaking the silence I said, ‘How
fine your arbūtus is.’--‘Well, I would say arbūtus,’ he answered,
‘otherwise you are as bad as the gardeners, who say Clemātis.’ When
we returned to the house, Hallam Tennyson brought in his mother very
tenderly and put her on a sofa. She is a very sweet-looking woman, with
‘the glittering blue eyes’ which fascinated Carlyle, and a lady-abbess
look from her head-dress--a kind of veil. Mrs. Greville revealed that
she had broken her promise of not repeating an unpublished poem of
Tennyson’s by reciting it to Mr. Carlyle, who said, ‘But did Alfred give
you leave to say it?’ and Tennyson said, ‘You are the wickedest old
woman I ever met with: it is most _profligate_ conduct’--and he half
meant it too. Tennyson then insisted that I should tell him some
stories. I did not like it, but found it was no use to resist; I should
have to do it in the end. He asked for ‘a village tragedy,’ so I told
him the story of Caroline Crowhurst: he said he should write it in a
play or a poem. Then I told him the stories of Mademoiselle von Raasloff
and of Croglin Grange. He was atrociously bad audience, and constantly
interrupted with questions. He himself repeated a little story, which
Mr. Greene of the ‘English History’ had told him--of a man who felt that
his fiddle, to which he was devoted, was the source of temptation to him
by leading him to taverns where he got drunk. On the Mississippi river,
he said, he heard a voice saying to him that he must destroy the fiddle;
so he went down, kissed the fiddle, and then broke it to pieces. ‘_I_
put in that kiss,’ said Tennyson, ‘because I thought it sounded better.’
“On the whole, the wayward poet leaves a favourable impression. He could
scarcely be less egotistic with all the flattery he has, and I am glad
to have seen him so quietly. The maid who opened the door was Mrs.
Cameron’s beautiful model, and there were pictures of her by Mrs.
Cameron all about the house.
“For the poet’s bearish manners the Tennyson family are to blame, in
making him think himself a demigod. One day, on arriving at Mrs.
Greville’s, he said at once, ‘Give me a pipe; I want to smoke.’ She at
once went off by herself down the village to the shop, and returning
with two pipes, offered them to him with all becoming subservience. He
never looked at her or thanked her, but, as he took them, growled out,
‘Where are the matches? I suppose now you’ve forgotten the
matches!’--‘Oh dear! I never thought of those.’
“Mrs. Greville has a note of Tennyson’s framed. It is a very pretty
note; but it begins ‘Dear Madwoman.’”
* * * * *
“_Babworth, Oct. 14._--This house overflows with loveliness in the way
of amateur art, and the drawings of its mistress, Mrs. Bridgeman
Simpson, are most beautiful. She is the kindest and most good-natured of
hostesses.... Yesterday we went to Sandbeck, an ugly dull house in a
flat, and looking bare within from paucity of furniture. Lord
Scarborough, once a bold huntsman, is now patiently awaiting a second
stroke of paralysis in a wheel-chair. Lumley, a pleasant boy, just going
to join his regiment at Dublin, drove me after luncheon to Roche Abbey,
a very pretty ruin in a glen.”
* * * * *
“_Oct. 15._--Mrs. Simpson’s very charming Polish sister-in-law, Mrs.
Drummond Baring, recounted yesterday evening a curious story out of the
reminiscences of her childhood, of which her husband from knowledge
confirmed every fact. Her father, Count Potocka, lived in Martinique.
His wife had been married before, and her beautiful daughter, Minetta,
idolised by her second husband, had made a happy marriage with the
Marquis de San Luz, and resided at Port Royal about five miles from her
parents. The father was a great naturalist, and had the greatest
interest in introducing and naturalising all kinds of plants in the West
Indies. Amongst other plants, he was most anxious to introduce
strawberries. Every one said he would fail, and the neighbouring
gardeners especially said so much about it that it was a positive
annoyance to them when his plants all seemed to succeed, and he had a
large bed of strawberries in flower. His step-daughter, Minetta, came to
see them, and he always said to her that, when the strawberries were
ripe, she should have the first fruit.
“A ball was given at Port Royal by the Governor, and there her parents
saw Minetta, beautiful and radiant as ever; but she left the ball early,
for her child was not well. As she went away, she said to her
stepfather, ‘Remember my strawberries.’
“Her parents returned home in the early morning, and a day and a night
succeeded. Towards dawn on the second morning, when night was just
breaking into the first grey daylight, the mother felt an irresistible
restlessness, and getting up and going to the window, she looked out. A
figure in white was moving to and fro amongst the strawberries,
carefully examining each plant and looking under the leaves. She awoke
her husband, who said at once, ‘It is one of the gardeners, who are so
jealous that they have come to destroy my plants;’ and jumping up, he
put on his _gola_--a sort of dressing-gown wrapper worn in
Martinique--and, taking his gun, rushed out. On first going out, he saw
the figure in white moving before him, but as he came up to the
strawberry beds it seemed to have disappeared. He was surprised, and
turning round towards the house, saw his wife making agonised signs to
him to come back. Such was her livid aspect, that he threw down his gun
upon the ground and ran in to her. He found her in a dead faint upon the
floor. When she recovered, she said that she had watched him from the
window as he went out, and that, as he reached the strawberry beds, the
figure seemed to turn round, and she saw--like a person seen through a
veil and through the glass of a window, and, though perfectly distinct,
transparent--her daughter Minetta. Soon after describing this, she was
seized with violent convulsions. Her husband was greatly alarmed about
her, and was just sending off for the doctor, who lived at some
distance, when a rider on a little Porto Rico pony came clattering into
the court. They thought it was the doctor, but it was not; it was a
messenger from Port Royal to say that Minetta was dead. She had been
seized with a chill on returning from the ball, and it had turned to
fatal diphtheria. In her last hours, when her throat was so swelled and
hot, she had constantly said, ‘Oh, my throat is so hot! Oh, if I had
only some of those strawberries!’”
* * * * *
“_Thoresby, Oct. 17._--Lord Manvers sent for me after luncheon three
days ago, and we came with a horse fleet as the wind through the green
lanes of Clumber, and across part of the (Sherwood) forest, to this
immense modern palace by Salvin. All around is forest. No one was at
home when I arrived, so I went out for a walk, and was joined by Lord
Manvers on returning.... Lady Manvers is quite delightful, and so are
her son and daughter, so I have been very glad of two days alone with
the family; and the forest is enchanting from its varieties of gnarled
oak, silver birch, endlessly contorted fir, and gigantic beeches, with
ever-varying lights on the golden and crimson fern in its first
beautiful decay. Now guests have arrived, including Mr. Frederick
Tayler, the artist,[267] whose blottesque treatment of the green in the
forest with only gamboge, indigo, and sepia is very interesting to see.
He was very funny about the late Lord Manvers, who was a wit, and who,
when Lord Ossington was rather boastful about his lake, said--‘Come,
come now, Ossington, don’t speak of a lake; just wipe it up and say no
more about it.’
“In the afternoon we drove through ‘the Catwhins’ to Clumber--a dull
ugly low-lying house. There is much fine china, but it is a dreary
place.”
* * * * *