[3] Since the serial publication of these sketches, the death
of the venerable writer has taken place.
One particular Monday, near Christmas, will long be remembered as being
perhaps the most terrible day hitherto experienced in an abnormally
severe winter. The heavy pall of dense fog which has settled over London
has disorganized the traffic and caused innumerable accidents. Great
banks of snow are piled up high at the sides of the roads, a partial
thaw has been succeeded by a renewed severe frost, making the pavements
like ice, and causing locomotion to become as dangerous as it is
detestable. Arriving at Victoria District Station early in the
afternoon, with the intention of paying a visit to the veteran novelist,
Mrs. Houston, in Gloucester Street, you find yourself in Cimmerian
darkness, uncertain whether to turn to north or south, to east or west.
A small boy passes by, from whom you inquire the way, and he promptly
offers his escort thither in safety. He is as good as his word, and
after a quarter of an hour's walk you arrive at your destination.
Thankfully presenting him with a gratuity, and expressing surprise at
his finding the road with such unerring footsteps, the child replies in
a cheerful voice, "I live close by here. I have been blind from my
birth; darkness and light are both alike to me"; and he goes off
whistling merrily.
The septuagenarian author is upstairs in the drawing-room, lying on a
long, low, comfortable spring couch, from which, alas! she is unable to
move, some affection of the muscles having caused a complete uselessness
of the lower limbs. She is bright and cheerful, notwithstanding; serene
and patient. Her intellect is undimmed, her memory is perfect, her
conversation is delightful, and her dress is suitable and picturesque.
She wears a black velvet gown, which is relieved by a full frill of old
lace gathered up round the wrists and throat, a crimson silk shawl on
her shoulders, and a lace cap with a roll round it of the same coloured
ribbon. Her hair, for which she was famous in her childhood, is still
soft and abundant, and only changed from "the great ruddy mane of her
youth," as she calls it, to the subdued brown and grey tints of her
present age. Her eyes, of grey-blue, are bright, and light up with keen
intelligence as she converses, and her voice is low and sweet. She is
_grande dame_ to the tips of her fingers, and the small,
aristocratic-looking hands are white and well-shaped. With an old-world
courtesy of manner she combines a juvenility of thought, and being a
great reader, she is as well up in the literature of the day as she is
in the records of the past. A brilliant _raconteuse_, Mrs. Houston
possesses a fund of anecdote, as original as it is interesting.
On each side of her couch stands within her easy reach a little table,
containing her favourite authors and some writing materials, and her
caligraphy is particularly neat, small, and legible. A broad verandah
runs along the front of the house; in summer it is her particular care,
as she superintends the training of the creepers over the wide arches,
and also the arrangement of a small conservatory, which can be seen
through the heavy Oriental _portieres_ which divide the two rooms.
There, a fine plumbago creeper, with several Australian plants and ferns
flourish, which give it quite a tropical appearance.
There is a great variety of old Dresden china on the mantelpieces; a
Japanese screen stands near the further door. The book-cases in both
rooms are well filled, and so is the large round table at the side
yonder; they are kept in such method and order that Mrs. Houstoun has
only to order "the eighth book on the top of the shelf at the right," or
"the tenth book on the lower shelf at the left," to ensure her getting
the needed volume. She calls attention to her pictures, which are mostly
of considerable value. Over the piano hangs, in a Florentine frame,
Sasso's copy of the Madonna del Grand Duca, a painting by Schlinglandt,
which is remarkable for its extraordinary attention to detail, and
others by Vander Menlen and Zucarilli. A vacant space on the wall has
lately been occupied by one of Bonnington's best seascapes, which she
has kindly lent for exhibition.
Mrs. Houstoun is the daughter of the late Edward Jesse, the
distinguished naturalist. The family is of French extraction. He was the
representative of a younger and Protestant branch of the _Barons of
Jesse Levas_, one of the oldest families in Languedoc, who emigrated
after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes to England, and bought an
estate in the county of Wilts, but when they became English country
gentlemen they dropped, like sensible people, not only the distinctive
_de_, but the accent on the final _e_, which marked their Gallic origin.
Her grandfather was the Rev. William Jesse, incumbent of the then only
Episcopalian church of West Bromwich, Staffordshire. "I have no very
distinct personal recollection of him," she observes, "but I have reason
to believe that his value, both as a good man and a learned divine, was
duly recognized. Bishop Horne, author of 'Commentaries on the Psalms,'
was at one time his curate." In 1802, Mr. Jesse (then twenty years of
age) was chosen by Lord Dartmouth to be his private secretary, and four
years later, through his influential chief, he obtained an appointment
in the Royal Household. The duties which his post as "Gentleman of the
Ewry" entailed were of the slightest, consisting merely of an attendance
in full Court dress on great State occasions, to present on bended knee
a golden ewer filled with rose-water to the Sovereign. The royal fingers
were dipped into it and dried on a fine damask napkin, which the
"gentleman" carried on his arm. For this occasional service the yearly
pay was three hundred pounds, together with "perquisites"; but though
the absurd and useless office was long since done away with, whilst it
existed its influence over Mr. Jesse's prospects in life was very
considerable, as it enabled him to marry the beautiful daughter of Sir
John Morris, a wealthy Welsh baronet. Mrs. Houstoun's childish days were
spent first at a house in the prettiest quarter of Richmond Park, and
later on at a cottage close to Bushey Park. "Those were the days before
the then Duke of Clarence became king, and the Sailor-Prince showed
himself to be one of the most good-natured of men," says Mrs. Houstoun.
"He often joined my father and me in our rides about the Park, and on
one occasion he inquired of my father concerning the future of his only
son."
"What are you going to do with him?" asked H.R.H.
"Well, sir," was the reply, "he has been ten years at Eton, a rather
expensive education, so I entered him yesterday at Brazenose----"
"Going to make a parson of him, eh? Got any interest in the Church?"
"None whatever, sir, but----"
"Might as well cut his throat," said the Duke. "Why not put him into the
Admiralty? I'll see he gets a clerkship."
The royal promise was faithfully kept. Young John Heneage Jesse got his
appointment almost immediately, and worked his way up the different
grades, always standing high in the opinion of his chiefs, until after a
long period of service, he finally retired on a pension, and is well
known in the literary world as the author of "The Court of England under
the Stuarts and Houses of Hanover," and sundry historical memoirs.
Reverting to these long bygone days, your hostess says she can remember
the famous philanthropist, William Wilberforce, in whose unflagging
efforts to effect the freedom of the West Indian negroes, her aunt, Mrs.
Townsend, was so zealous and able a coadjutrix; she recollects to this
day the childish grudge she felt against them both, when after the visit
of the great emancipator all cakes and puddings were strictly _tabooed_,
as they contained West India sugar, and therefore to eat them was a sin.
Living close to the home of her father's old friend, John Wilson Croker,
she became acquainted with many world-famed and literary men; amongst
them she mentions Theodore Hook, Sir William Follett, the poet Moore,
Sir Francis Chantrey, and Sir Thomas Lawrence, subsequently Samuel
Rogers, Mr. Darwin, Wordsworth, the gifted Mrs. Norton, and James Smith,
the most popular and brilliant of the authors of "Rejected Addresses."
At the early age of sixteen she became engaged, and shortly after
married Lionel Fraser, whose father died when he was Minister
Plenipotentiary at Dresden, but in less than a year she became a widow.
Mr. Fraser, just before leaving Cambridge, had met with an accident. In
a trial of strength, an under-graduate threw him over his shoulder: the
lad fell on his head, and was taken up for dead, but after a while
recovered, and was to all appearance the same as before; but the hidden
evil had been slowly though surely working, and the rupture of a small
vessel in the brain brought to a sudden close the young life of so much
promise. Inconsolable, the young widow returned to her father's house,
where she lived in close seclusion for nearly four years, and then
became engaged to Captain Houstoun, of the 10th Hussars, second son of
General Sir William Houstoun, Bart. His son George, who succeeded him,
added the name of Boswall on marrying an heiress. _A propos_ of that
engagement, Mrs. Houstoun has an amusing story to tell. "Another of the
friends," she says, "to whom we were indebted for many pleasant hours,
was that courtly Hanoverian soldier Baron Knesbeck, equerry to the Duke
of Cambridge. We were riding on Wimbledon Common, and I was mounted on
the second charger of my betrothed, when the old Duke, on his stout bay,
joined our party; my engagement had not at that time been announced, and
I therefore parried, as best I could, the Duke's questions as to the
horse and its owner. At last, however, the climax came, for with a wink
of his eye, more suggestive than regal, His Royal Highness put the
following leading question as we rode slowly on: 'Sweetheart, hey?'
There was no resisting this point-blank query, and the soft impeachment
had to be owned at last."
After her second marriage Mrs. Houstoun and her husband lived for a year
in their yacht "Dolphin," during which time they visited Texas and the
Gulf of Mexico. Later on they spent two winters at New Orleans before
slavery was abolished. Then came a tour on the Continent, where they
travelled from Paris to Naples in their own britska, taking four horses
and two English postillions. When they stayed for any length of time at
any place, the horses were saddled, and they would ride forty or fifty
miles a day, revolvers in saddle pockets, into the wildest parts of the
country. After a roving and adventurous time, escaping hairbreadth
dangers, for Mrs. Houstoun says her husband was "as bold as a
buccaneer," they returned home, where Captain Houstoun, after trying
various places, finally took on a long lease Dhulough Lodge, about one
hundred square miles of ground in the west of Ireland, and there for
twenty years she found her lot cast. In sheer weariness of spirit she
took to her pen. As a girl she had always been accustomed to correct her
father's proofs, and had written some short stories and poems, but she
then wrote her first novel, "Recommended to Mercy." It was so well
reviewed in the _Times_ that, encouraged by her success, Mrs. Houstoun
followed it with "Sink or Swim," "Taken upon Trust," "First in the
Field," "A Cruel Wrong," "Records of a Stormy Life," and "Zoe's Brand,"
which last book M. Boisse, editor of the _Revue Contemporaine_, asked
permission to translate into French, but by some omission his
application was never answered, and the project fell through. Some time
later she wrote "Twenty Years in the Wild West" and several other
novels, and she has lately finished a new story in two volumes, entitled
"How She Loved Him," published by Mr. F. V. White, of whom she remarks
with warmth, "He stands high amongst the publishers I have known for
liberality and honour, and is one of my best and kindest friends."
"Amongst other books," says Mrs. Houstoun, "I look back with
thankfulness to my novelette, entitled 'Only a Woman's Life,' the
writing of which was successful in obtaining the release, after twelve
years of convict life, of an innocent woman, who had been originally
condemned to death on circumstantial evidence for the murder of her
child. Of the death sentence I was so happy, at the eleventh hour, as to
obtain a commutation."
But it is difficult to get the lonely old lady to talk much of her
books, and though her memory is perfect in everything else, both past
and present, she declares that she has forgotten even the names of some
of her own works. She infinitely prefers to speak about those of her
friends. She is devoted to Whittier's poems, and to Pope, and can quote
passages at great length from this great favourite; whilst among modern
novelists she prefers Mrs. Riddell and the late George Lawrence, though
she says, laughing, she fears that this last shows a somewhat Bohemian
taste.
"I am sure I was born to be a landscape gardener," remarks Mrs.
Houstoun. "That was my real vocation in life. If you had but seen our
home amongst the Connaught Mountains when I first saw it! The 'wild
bog,' as the natives call the soil, reached to my very doors and
windows. A wilderness of moist earth-bog myrtle and stunted heather
alone met the eye, very discouraging to such a lover of dainty well-kept
gardens and flowers as I am. Towering above and beyond our roughly-built
house was a mountain called Glenumra, over 3,000 feet in height, whilst
in front was Muelhrae, or King of the Irish Mountains (as it is the
loftiest), and a part of it effectually concealed from us all the
glories of the setting sun. The humid nature of the soil was favourable
to the growth of plants. I designed and laid out large gardens, and had
only to insert a few feet or inches, as the case might be, of laurel,
fuchsia, veronica, or hydrangia into the ground, and the slips took
root, grew and flourished. Long before we left there were fuchsias
thirty feet high; the veronicas, over six feet, blossomed in November.
Then I built a stove-house and conservatory, where my exotic fernery was
my great delight, and I spent much of my time there. All the money I
earned by my writings I spent on my ferns and plants."
But the damp of the climate, the constant sitting up at night with their
poor sick dependents, at whose beck and call she was ever ready, and the
impossibility of procuring any medical attendance, laid the seeds of a
severe neuralgic affection of the joints, from which she has never
recovered, and a terrible fall resulted in a hopeless injury to both
knees. She says that during her twenty years' residence in that
distressful country she never knew the blessing of really good health.
Mrs. Houstoun is extremely hospitable and sociable in disposition. One
of her chief regrets in being so completely laid by is that she is no
longer able to give the pleasant little weekly dinners of eight in which
she used to delight. She enjoys nothing more than visits from her
friends, who are always glad to come in and sit with her and listen to
her amusing and interesting conversation. She is a great politician and
an extreme Liberal, "though," she adds, "not a Gladstonian." At the
present moment she is deeply absorbed in the Stanley controversy, and,
as she is a cousin of the late Major Barttelot, and was much attached to
him, she naturally remarks that she "never knew anything but good of
him."
But though this venerable lady is unable to entertain her friends in her
former manner, she does not forget the poor and suffering. She gives
little teas and suppers to aged men and women, whose sad cases have from
time to time been recommended to her, at which charitable gatherings,
with doors rigidly shut to exclude the smell of the poor old men's
tobacco smoke, she allows them to indulge in the luxury of a pipe.
Though enduring constant pain and many long sleepless nights, she avows
that she is never dull or miserable. No word of complaint or murmur
passes her lips at her crippled condition. On the contrary, she
expresses the deepest content and thankfulness for her many comforts and
blessings, amongst which, she remarks, are her three maids, all sisters,
who are as devoted to her as if they had been born in her service. They
carry her up and down stairs, and wait on her, hand and foot, with
tender care. "And only think," she concludes cheerfully and with a
smile, "what a mercy it is that I retain my memory so well, and that my
mind is so clear, whilst I lie here useless!" "Nay, not useless," is
your reply, as you rise to leave, "they also serve who only stand and
wait."
[Illustration: Mrs. Alexander Fraser]