1843-1848
"The more we live, more brief appear
Our life's returning stages:
A day to childhood seems an year,
And years like passing ages."
--THOMAS CAMPBELL.
"Oh if, in time of sacred youth,
We learned at home to love and pray,
Pray Heaven that early Love and Truth
May never wholly pass away."
--THACKERAY.
My mother took me to Harnish Rectory on July 28, 1843. The aspect of Mr.
Kilvert, his tall figure, and red hair encircling a high bald forehead,
was not reassuring, nor were any temptations offered by my companions
(who were almost entirely of a rich middle class), or by the playground,
which was a little gravelled courtyard--the stable-yard, in fact--at the
back of the house. The Rectory itself was a small house, pleasantly
situated on a hill, near an odd little Wrenian church which stood in a
well-kept churchyard. We were met at Harnish by Mrs. Pile, who, as
daughter of an Alton farmer, was connected with the happiest period of
my mother's life, and while I was a prey to the utmost anguish, talking
to her prevented my mother from thinking much about parting with me.
One miserable morning Mr. Kilvert, Mrs. Pile, and I went with my mother
and Lea to the station at Chippenham. Terrible indeed was the moment
when the train came up and I flung myself first into Lea's arms and then
into my mother's. Mrs. Pile did her best to comfort me--but ... there
_was_ no comfort.
Several boys slept in a room together at Harnish. In mine there was at
first only one other, who was one of the greatest boy-blackguards I ever
came across--wicked, malicious, and hypocritical. He made my life
indescribably miserable. One day, however, whilst we were wearily
plodding through our morning lessons, I saw a pleasant gentleman-like
boy come through the gate, who was introduced to us as Alick MacSween.
He was thirteen, so much older than any of the others, and he was very
good-looking, at least we thought so then, and we used to apply to him
the line in our Syntax--
"Ingenui vultus puer ingenuique pudoris."
It was a great joy to find myself transferred to his room, and he soon
became a hero in my eyes. Imagination endowed him with every grace, and
I am sure, on looking back, that he really was a very nice boy.
Gradually I had the delight of feeling assured that Alick liked me as
much as I liked him. We became everything to each other, and shared our
"lockers" in school, and our little gardens in play-hours. Our affection
made sunshine in the dreariness. My one dread was that Alick would some
day like another boy better than he liked me. It happened. Then, at ten
years old, life was a blank. Soon afterwards Alick left the school, and
a little later, before he was fifteen, I heard that he was dead. It was
a dumb sorrow, which I could speak to no one, for no one would have
understood it, not even my mother. It is all in the dim distance of the
long ago. I could not realise what Alick would be if he was alive, but
my mind's eye sees him now as he was then, as if it were yesterday: I
mourn him still.
Mr. Kilvert, as I have said, was deeply "religious," but he was very
hot-tempered, and slashed our hands with a ruler and our bodies with a
cane most unmercifully for exceedingly slight offences. So intense, so
abject was our terror of him, that we used to look forward as to an
oasis to the one afternoon when he went to his parish duties, and Mrs.
Kilvert or her sister Miss Sarah Coleman attended to the school, for, as
the eldest boy was not thirteen, we were well within their capacities.
The greater part of each day was spent in lessons, and oh! what trash we
were wearisomely taught; but from twelve to one we were taken out for a
walk, when we employed the time in collecting all kinds of rubbish--bits
of old tobacco-pipe, &c.--to make "museums."
_To_ MY MOTHER.
"DARLING MAMA,--I like it rather better than I expected. They have
killed a large snake by stoning it, and Gumbleton has skinned it,
such nasty work, and peged it on a board covered with butter and
pepper, and layed it out in the sun to dry. It is going to be
stuffed. Do you know I have been in the vault under the church. It
is so dark. There are great big coffins there. The boy's chief game
is robbers. Give love and 8 thousand kisses to Lea and love to the
Grannies. Good-bye darling Mama."
"Frederick Leuis has been very ill of crop. Do you know what that
is? I have been to the school-feast at Mr. Clutterbuck's. It was so
beautifull. All the girls were seated round little round tables
amongst beds of geraniums, heltrope, verbenas, and balm of Gilead.
We carried the tea and were called in to grapes and gooseberries,
and we played at thread-the-needle and went in a swing and in a
flying boat. Good-bye Mamma."
"MY DEAR MAMMA,--The boys have got two dear little rabbits. They
had two wood-pigeons, but they died a shocking death, being eaten
of worms, and there was a large vault made in which was interred
their bodies, and that of a dear little mouse who died too. All
went into mourning for it."
"MY DEAR MAMMA,--We have been a picknick at a beautiful place
called Castlecomb. When we got there we went to see the dungeon.
Then we saw a high tower half covered with ivy. You must know that
Castlecomb is on the top of an emense hill, so that you have to
climb hands and knees. When we sate down to tea, our things rolled
down the hill. We rambled about and gathered nuts, for the trees
were loaded. In the town there is a most beautiful old carved cross
and a church. Good-bye darling Mamma."
"_Nov. 11._--I will tell you a day at Mr. Kilvert's. I get up at
half-past six and do lessons for the morning. Then at eight
breakfast. Then go out till half-past nine. Then lessons till
eleven. Then go out till a quarter-past eleven. Then lessons till
12, go a walk till 2 dinner. Lessons from half-past three, writing,
sums, or dictation. From 5 till 6 play. Tea. Lessons from 7 to 8.
Bed. I have collected two thousand stamps since I was here. Do you
ever take your pudding to the poor women on Fridays now? Goodbye
darling Mamma."
As the holidays approached, I became ill with excitement and joy, but
all through the half years at Harnish I always kept a sort of map on
which every day was represented as a square to be filled up when lived
through. Oh, the dreary sight of these spaces on the first days: the
ecstasy when only one or two squares remained white!
_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.
"When I arrived at Harnish, Augustus was looking sadly ill. As the
Rectory door was opened, the dear boy stood there, and when he saw
us, he could not speak, but the tears flowed down his cheeks. After
a while he began to show his joy at seeing us."
The Marcus Hares were at Hurstmonceaux all the winter, and a terrible
trial it was to me, as my Aunt Lucy was more jealous than ever of any
kind word being spoken to me. But I had some little pleasures when I was
at Hurstmonceaux Place with the large merry family of the Bunsens, who
had a beautiful Christmas-tree.
There is nothing to tell of my school-life during the next year, though
my mind dwells drearily on the long days of uninstructive lessons in
the close hot schoolroom when so hopelessly "nous suyons à grosses
gouttes," as Mme. de Sévigné says; or on the monotonous confinement in
the narrow court which was our usual playground; and my recollection
shrinks from the reign of terror under which we lived. In the summer I
was delivered from Hurstmonceaux, going first with my mother to our dear
Stoke home, which I had never seen before in all its wealth of summer
flowers, and proceeding thence to the English lakes, where the delight
of the flowers and the sketching was intense. But our pleasure was not
unalloyed, for, though Uncle Julius accompanied us, my mother took
Esther Maurice with her, wishing to give her a holiday after her hard
work in school-teaching at Reading, and never foreseeing, what every one
else foresaw, that Uncle Julius, who had always a passion for
governesses, would certainly propose to her. Bitter were the tears which
my mother shed when this result--to her alone unexpected--actually took
place. It was the most dismal of betrothals: Esther sobbed and cried, my
mother sobbed and cried, Uncle Julius sobbed and cried daily. I used to
see them sitting holding each other's hands and crying on the banks of
the Rotha.
These scenes for the most part took place at Foxhow, where we paid a
long visit to Mrs. Arnold, whose children were delightful companions to
me. Afterwards we rented a small damp house near Ambleside--Rotha
Cottage--for some weeks, but I was very ill from its unhealthiness, and
terribly ill afterwards at Patterdale from the damp of the place.
Matthew Arnold, then a very handsome young man, was always excessively
kind to me, and I often had great fun with him and his brothers, but he
was not considered then to give any promise of the intellectual powers
he showed afterwards. From Foxhow and Rotha Cottage we constantly
visited Wordsworth and his dear old wife at Rydal Mount, and we walked
with him to the Rydal Falls. He always talked a good deal about himself
and his own poems, and I have a sense of his being not vain, but
conceited. I have been told since, in confirmation of this, that when
Milton's watch--preserved somewhere--was shown to him, he instantly and
involuntarily drew out his own watch, and compared, not the watches, but
the poets. The "severe creator of immortal things," as Landor called
him, read us some of his verses admirably,[32] but I was too young at
this time to be interested in much of his conversation, unless it was
about the wild-flowers, to which he was devoted, as I was. I think that
at Keswick we also saw Southey, but I do not remember him, though I
remember his (very ugly) house very well. In returning south we saw
Chester, and paid a visit to an old cousin of my mother's--"Dosey
(Theodosia) Leigh," who had many quaint sayings. In allusion to her own
maiden state, she would often complacently quote the old Cheshire
proverb--"Bout's bare but it's yezzy."[33] While at Chester, though I
forget how, I first became conscious how difficult the having Esther
Maurice for an aunt would make everything in life to me. I was, however,
at her wedding in November at Reading.
The winter of 1844-45 was the first of many which were made unutterably
wretched by "Aunt Esther." Aunt Lucy had chastised me with rods, Aunt
Esther did indeed chastise me with scorpions. Aunt Lucy was a very
refined person, and a very charming and delightful companion to those
she loved, and, had she loved me, I should have been devoted to her.
Aunt Esther was, from her own personal characteristics, a person I never
could have loved. Yet my uncle was now entirely ruled by her, and my
gentle mother considered her interference in everything as a cross which
was "sent to her" to be meekly endured. The society at the Rectory was
now entirely changed: all the relations of the Hare family, except the
Marcus Hares, were given to understand that their visits were unwelcome,
and the house was entirely filled with the relations of Aunt Esther--old
Mr. and Mrs. Maurice; their married daughter Lucilla Powell, with her
husband and children; their unmarried daughters--Mary, Priscilla, and
Harriet[34]--Priscilla, who now never left her bed, and who was
violently sick after everything she ate (yet with the most enormous
appetite), often for many months together.
With the inmates of the house, the whole "tone" of the Rectory society
was changed. It was impossible entirely to silence Uncle Julius, yet at
times even he was subdued by his new surroundings, the circle around him
being incessantly occupied with the trivialities of domestic or
parochial detail, varied by the gossip of such a tenth-rate provincial
town as Reading, or reminiscences of the boarding-school which had been
their occupation and pride for so many years. Frequently also the spare
rooms were filled by former pupils--"young ladies" of a kind who would
announce their engagement by "The infinite grace of God has put it into
the heart of his servant Edmund to propose to me," or "I have been led
by the mysterious workings of God's providence to accept the hand of
Edgar,"[35]--expressions which Aunt Esther, who wrote good and simple
English herself, would describe as touching evidences of a Christian
spirit in her younger friends.
But what was far more trying to me was, that in order to prove that her
marriage had made no difference in the sisterly and brotherly relations
which existed between my mother and Uncle Julius, Aunt Esther insisted
that my mother should dine at the Rectory _every_ night, and as, in
winter, the late return in an open carriage was impossible, this
involved our sleeping at the Rectory and returning home every morning in
the bitter cold before breakfast. The hours after five o'clock in every
day of the much-longed-for, eagerly counted holidays, were now absolute
purgatory. Once landed at the Rectory, I was generally left in a dark
room till dinner at seven o'clock, for candles were never allowed in
winter in the room where I was left alone. After dinner I was never
permitted to amuse myself, or to do _anything_, except occasionally to
net. If I spoke, Aunt Esther would say with a satirical smile, "As if
you ever _could_ say anything worth hearing, as if it was ever
_possible_ that any one could want to hear what you have to say." If I
took up a book, I was told instantly to put it down again, it was
"disrespect to my Uncle." If I murmured, Aunt Esther, whose temper was
absolutely unexcitable, quelled it by her icy rigidity. Thus gradually I
got into the habit of absolute silence at the Rectory--a habit which it
took me years to break through: and I often still suffer from the want
of self-confidence engendered by reproaches and taunts which never
ceased: for a day--for a week--for a year they would have been nothing:
but for _always_, with no escape but my own death or that of my
tormentor! Water dripping for ever on a stone wears through the stone at
last.
The cruelty which I received from my new aunt was repeated in various
forms by her sisters, one or other of whom was always at the Rectory.
Only Priscilla, touched by the recollection of many long visits during
my childhood at Lime, occasionally sent a kindly message or spoke a
kindly word to me from her sick-bed, which I repaid by constant
offerings of flowers. Most of all, however, did I feel the conduct of
Mary Maurice, who, by pretended sympathy and affection, wormed from me
all my little secrets--how miserable my uncle's marriage had made my
home-life, how I never was alone with my mother now, &c.--and repeated
the whole to Aunt Esther.
From this time Aunt Esther resolutely set herself to subdue me
thoroughly--to make me feel that any remission of misery at home, any
comparative comfort, was as a gift from her. But to make me feel this
thoroughly, it was necessary that all pleasure and comfort in my home
should first be annihilated. I was a very delicate child, and suffered
absolute agonies from chilblains, which were often large open wounds on
my feet. Therefore I was put to sleep in "the Barracks"--two dismal
unfurnished, uncarpeted north rooms, without fireplaces, looking into a
damp courtyard, with a well and a howling dog. My only bed was a rough
deal trestle, my only bedding a straw palliasse, with a single coarse
blanket. The only other furniture in the room was a deal chair, and a
washing-basin on a tripod. No one was allowed to bring me any hot water;
and as the water in my room always froze with the intense cold, I had to
break the ice with a brass candlestick, or, if that were taken away,
with my wounded hands. If, when I came down in the morning, as was often
the case, I was almost speechless from sickness and misery, it was
always declared to be "temper." I was given "saur-kraut" to eat because
the very smell of it made me sick.
When Aunt Esther discovered the comfort that I found in getting away to
my dear old Lea, she persuaded my mother that Lea's influence over me
was a very bad one, and obliged her to keep me away from her.
A favourite torment was reviling all my own relations before me--my
sister, &c.--and there was no end to the insulting things Aunt Esther
said of them.
People may wonder, and oh! how often have I wondered that my mother did
not put an end to it all. But, inexplicable as it may seem, it was her
extraordinary religious opinions which prevented her doing so. She
literally believed and taught that when a person struck you on the right
cheek you were to invite them to strike you on the left also, and
therefore if Aunt Esther injured or insulted me in one way, it was
right that I should give her the opportunity of injuring or insulting me
in another! I do not think that my misery cost her nothing, she felt it
acutely; but _because_ she felt it thus, she welcomed it, as a fiery
trial to be endured. Lea, however, was less patient, and openly
expressed her abhorrence of her own trial in having to come up to the
Rectory daily to dress my mother for dinner, and walk back to Lime
through the dark night, coming again, shine or shower, in the early
morning, before my mother was up.
I would not have any one suppose that, on looking back through the
elucidation of years, I can see no merits in my Aunt Esther Hare. The
austerities which she enforced upon my mother with regard to me she
fully carried out as regarded herself. "Elle vivait avec elle-même comme
sa victime," as Mme. de Staël would describe it. She was the Inquisition
in person. She probed and analysed herself and the motive of her every
action quite as bitterly and mercilessly as she probed and analysed
others. If any pleasure, any even which resulted from affection for
others, had drawn her for an instant from what she believed to be the
path--and it was always the thorniest path--of self-sacrifice, she
would remorselessly denounce that pleasure, and even tear out that
affection from her heart. She fasted and denied herself in everything;
indeed, I remember that when she was once very ill, and it was necessary
for her to see a doctor, she never could be persuaded to consent to it,
till the happy idea occurred of inducing her to do so on a Friday, by
way of a penance! To such of the poor as accepted her absolute
authority, Aunt Esther was unboundedly kind, generous, and considerate.
To the wife of the curate, who leant confidingly upon her, she was an
unselfish and heroic nurse, equally judicious and tender, in every
crisis of a perplexing and dangerous illness. To her own sisters and
other members of her family her heart and home were ever open, with
unvarying affection. To her husband, to whom her severe creed taught her
to show the same inflexible obedience she exacted from others, she was
utterly devoted. His requirement that she should receive his old friend,
Mrs. Alexander, as a permanent inmate, almost on an equality with
herself in the family home, and surround her with loving attentions, she
bowed to without a murmur. But to a little boy who was, to a certain
degree, independent of her, and who had from the first somewhat
resented her interference, she knew how to be--oh! she was--most cruel.
Open war was declared at length between Aunt Esther and myself. I had a
favourite cat called Selma, which I adored, and which followed me about
at Lime wherever I went. Aunt Esther saw this, and at once insisted that
the cat must be given up to her. I wept over it in agonies of grief: but
Aunt Esther insisted. My mother was relentless in saying that I must be
taught to give up my own way and pleasure to others; and forced to give
it up if I would not do so willingly, and with many tears, I took Selma
in a basket to the Rectory. For some days it almost comforted me for
going to the Rectory, because then I possibly saw my idolised Selma. But
soon there came a day when Selma was missing: Aunt Esther had ordered
her to be ... hung!
From this time I never attempted to conceal that I loathed Aunt Esther.
I constantly gave her the presents which my mother made me save up all
my money to buy for her--for her birthday, Christmas, New Year, &c.--but
I never spoke to her unnecessarily. On these occasions I always received
a present from her in return--"The Rudiments of Architecture," price
ninepence, in a red cover. It was always the same, which not only saved
expense, but also the trouble of thinking. I have a number of copies of
"The Rudiments of Architecture" now, of which I thus became the
possessor.
Only from Saturday till Monday we had a reprieve. The nearness of Lime
to the school which my mother undertook to teach on Sundays was the
excuse, but, as I see from her journal, only the excuse, which she made
to give me one happy day in the week. How well I remember still the
ecstasy of these Saturday evenings, when I was once more alone with the
mother of my childhood, who was all the world to me, and she was almost
as happy as I was in playing with my kittens or my little black spaniel
"Lewes," and when she would sing to me all her old songs--"Hohenlinden,"
"Lord Ullin's Daughter," &c. &c.--and dear Lea was able to come in and
out undisturbed, in the old familiar way.
[Illustration: THE VESTRY, HURSTMONCEAUX.]
Even the pleasures of this home-Sunday, however, were marred in the
summer, when my mother gave in to a suggestion of Aunt Esther that I
should be locked into the vestry of the church between the services.
Miserable indeed were the three hours which--provided with a sandwich
for dinner--I had weekly to spend there; and though I did not expect to
see ghosts, the utter isolation of Hurstmonceaux Church, far away from
all haunts of men, gave my imprisonment an unusual eeriness. Sometimes I
used to clamber over the tomb of the Lords Dacre, which rises like a
screen against one side of the vestry, and be stricken with vague
terrors by the two grim white figures lying upon it in the silent
desolation, in which the scamper of a rat across the floor seemed to
make a noise like a whirlwind. At that time two grinning skulls (of the
founder and foundress of the church, it was believed) lay on the ledge
of the tomb; but soon after this Uncle Julius and Aunt Esther made a
weird excursion to the churchyard with a spade, and buried them in the
dusk with their own hands. In the winter holidays, the intense cold of
the unwarmed church made me so ill, that it led to my miserable penance
being remitted. James II. used to say that "Our Saviour flogged people
to make them go out of the temple, but that he never punished them to
make them go _in_."[36] But in my childhood no similar abstinence was
observed.
It was a sort of comfort to me, in the real church-time, to repeat
vigorously all the worst curses in the Psalms, those in which David
showed his most appalling degree of malice (Psalm xxxv. 7-16, Psalm
lix., Psalm lxix. 22-29, Psalm cxl. 9, 10, for instance), and apply them
to Aunt Esther & Co. As all the Psalms were extolled as beatific, and
the Church of England used them constantly for edification, their
sentiments were all right, I supposed.
A great delight to me at this time was a cabinet with many drawers which
my mother gave me to keep my minerals and shells in, and above which
was a little bookcase filled with all my own books. The aunts in vain
tried to persuade her to take away "some of the drawers," so that I
might "never have the feeling that the cabinet was wholly mine." When I
returned to school, it was some amusement in my walks to collect for
this cabinet the small fossils which abound in the Wiltshire limestone
about Harnish, especially at Kellaway's quarry, a point which it was
always our especial ambition to reach on holidays. At eleven years old I
was quite learned about Pentacrinites, Bellemnites, Ammonites, &c.
It was often a sort of vague comfort to me at home that there was always
one person at Hurstmonceaux Rectory whom Aunt Esther was thoroughly
afraid of. It was the faithful old servant Collins, who had kept his
master in order for many years. I remember that my Uncle Marcus, when he
came to the Rectory, complained dreadfully of the tea, that the water
with which it was made was never "on the boil," &c.--"they really must
speak to Collins about it." But neither Uncle Julius nor Aunt Esther
would venture to do it; they really couldn't: he must do it himself. And
he did it, and very ill it was received.
The summer holidays were less miserable than those in the winter,
because then, at least for a time, we got away from Hurstmonceaux. In
the summer of 1845, I went with my mother to her old home of Alton for
the first time. How well I remember her burst of tears as we came in
sight of the White Horse, and the church-bells ringing, and the many
simple cordial poor people coming out to meet her, and blessing her. She
visited every cottage and every person in them, and gave feasts in a
barn to all the people. One day the school-children all sang a sort of
ode which a farmer's daughter had composed to her. Never was my sweet
mother more charming than in her intercourse with her humble friends at
Alton, and I delighted in threading with her the narrow muddy foot-lanes
of the village to the different cottages, of old and young Mary Doust,
of Lizzie Hams, Avis Wootton, Betty Perry, &c.
Alton was, and is, quite the most primitive place I have ever seen,
isolated--an oasis of verdure--in the midst of the great Wiltshire
corn-plain, which is bare ploughed land for so many months of the year;
its two tiny churches within a stone-throw of each other, and its
thatched mud cottages peeping out of the elms which surround its few
grass pastures. A muddy chalky lane leads from the village up to "Old
Adam," the nearest point on the chain of downs, and close by is a White
Horse, not the famous beast of Danish celebrity, but something much more
like the real animal. I was never tired during this visit of hearing
from his loving people what "Uncle Augustus" had said to them, and truly
his words and his image seemed indelibly impressed upon their hearts.
Mrs. Pile, with whose father or sister we stayed when at Alton, and who
always came to meet us there, was one of those rare characters in middle
life who are really ennobled by the ceaseless action of a true,
practical, humble Christianity. I have known many of those persons whom
the world calls "great ladies" in later times, but I have never known
any one who was more truly "a lady" in every best and highest sense,
than Mrs. Pile.
On leaving Alton, we went to join the Marcus Hares in the express train
at Swindon. Uncle Marcus, Aunt Lucy, her maid Griffiths, and my mother
were in one compartment of the carriage; my little cousin Lucebella,
Lea, an elderly peer (Lord Saye and Sele, I think), and I were in the
other, for carriages on the Great Western were then divided by a door.
As we neared Windsor, my little cousin begged to be held up that she
might see if the flag were flying on the castle. At that moment there
was a frightful crash, and the carriage dashed violently from side to
side. In an instant the dust was so intense that all became pitch
darkness. "For God's sake put up your feet and press backwards; I've
been in this before," cried Lord S., and we did so. In the other
compartment all the inmates were thrown violently on the floor, and
jerked upwards with every lurch of the train. If the darkness cleared
for an instant, I saw Lea's set teeth and livid face opposite. I learned
then for the first time that to put hand-bags in the net along the top
of the carriage is most alarming in case of accident. They are dashed
hither and thither like so many cannon-balls. A dressing-case must be
fatal.
After what seemed an endless time, the train suddenly stopped with a
crash. We had really, I believe, been three minutes off the line.
Instantly a number of men surrounded the carriage. "There is not an
instant to lose, another train is upon you, they may not be able to stop
it,"--and we were all dragged out and up the steep bank of the railway
cutting. Most strange, I remember, was the appearance of our ruined
train beneath, lying quite across the line. The wheels of the luggage
van at the end had come off, and the rest of the train had been dragged
off the line gradually, the last carriages first. Soon two trains were
waiting (stopped) on the blocked line behind. We had to wait on the top
of the bank till a new train came to fetch us from Slough, and when we
arrived there, we found the platform full of anxious inquirers, and much
sympathy we excited, quite black and blue with bruises, though none of
us seriously hurt.
[Illustration: LEWES.]
Soon after we reached Hurstmonceaux, my Uncle Marcus became seriously
ill at the Rectory. I went with my mother, Aunt Esther, and Uncle Julius
to his "charge" at Lewes, and, as we came back in the hot evening, we
were met by a messenger desiring us not to drive up to the house, as
Uncle Marcus must not be disturbed by the sound of wheels. Then his
children were sent to Lime, and my mother was almost constantly at the
Rectory. I used to go secretly to see her there, creeping in through the
garden so as not to be observed by the aunts, for Aunt Lucy could
scarcely bear her to be out of sight. At last one morning I was summoned
to go up to the Rectory with all the three children. Marcus went in
first alone to his father's room and was spoken to: then I went in with
the younger ones. Lucebella was lifted on to the pillow, I stood at the
side of the bed with Theodore; my mother, Uncle Julius, and Aunt Esther
were at the foot. I remember the scene as a picture, and Aunt Lucy
sitting stonily at the bed's-head in a violet silk dress. My dying uncle
had a most terrible look and manner, which haunted me long afterwards,
but he spoke to us, and I think gave us his blessing. I was told that
after we left the room he became more tranquil. In the night my mother
and Uncle Julius said the "Te Deum" aloud, and, as they reached the last
verse, he died.
Aunt Lucy never saw him again. She insisted upon being brought away
immediately to Lime, and shut herself up there. She was very peculiar at
this time and for a year afterwards, one of her odd fancies being that
her maid Griffiths was always to breakfast and have luncheon with the
family and be waited on as a lady. We children all went to the funeral,
driving in the family chariot. I had no real affection for Uncle Marcus,
but felt unusually solemnised by the tears around me. When, however, a
peacock butterfly, for which I had always longed, actually perched upon
my prayer-book as I was standing by the open grave in the most solemn
moment, I could not resist closing the book upon it, and my prayer-book
still has the marks of the butterfly's death. I returned to school in
August under the care of Mr. Hull, a very old friend of the family, who
had come to the funeral.
_To_ MY MOTHER.
"_Harnish, August 8._--When we got to London we got a cab and went,
passing the Guildhall where Gog and Magog live, the great
Post-Office, the New Royal Exchange and the Lord Mayor's, to
Tavistock Square, where three young men rushed down-stairs, who Mr.
Hull told me were his three sons--John, Henry, and Frank. I had my
tea when they had their dinner. After tea I looked at Miss Hull's
drawings. Mr. Hull gave me a book called 'The Shadowless Man.' I
stayed up to see a balloon, for which we had to go upon the top of
the house. The balloon looked like a ball of fire. It scattered all
kinds of lights, but it did not stay up very long. We also saw a
house on fire, the flames burst out and the sky was all red. Do
give the kitten and the kitten's kitten some nice bits from your
tea for my sake."
"_August 30._--We have been a picknick to Slaughterford. We all
went in a van till the woods of Slaughterford came in sight. Then
we walked up a hill, carrying baskets and cloaks between us till we
came to the place where we encamped. The dinner was unpacked, and
the cloth laid, and all sate round. When the dishes were uncovered,
there appeared cold beef, bread, cheese, and jam, which were
quickly conveyed to the mouths of the longing multitude. We then
plunged into the woods and caught the nuts by handfuls. Then I got
flowers and did a sketch, and when the van was ready we all went
home. Goodbye darling Mamma. I have written a poem, which I send
you--
"O Chippenham station thy music is sweet
When the up and down trains thy neighbourhood greet.
The up train to London directeth our path
And the down train will land us quite safely at Bath."
"_October_ the I don't know what.--O dearest Mamma, what do you
think! Mr. Dalby asked me to go to Compton Bassett with Mr. and
Mrs. Kilvert and Freddie Sheppard.... When we got to the gate of a
lovely rectory near Calne, Mrs. Sheppard flew to the door to
receive her son, as you would me, with two beautiful little girls
his sisters. After dinner I went with Freddie into the garden, and
to the church, and saw the peacocks and silver pheasants, and made
a sketch of the rectory. On Sunday we had prayers with singing and
went to church twice, and saw a beautiful avenue where the ground
was covered with beech-nuts. On Monday the Dalbys' carriage brought
us to Chippenham to the Angel, where we got out and walked to
Harnish. Mr. Dalby told me to tell you that having known Uncle
Augustus so well, he had taken _the liberty_ to invite me to
Compton."
"_Oct. 6._--It is now only ten weeks and six days to the holidays.
Last night I had a pan of hot water for my feet and a warm bed,
and, what was worse, two horrible pills! and this morning when I
came down I was presented with a large breakfast-cup of senna-tea,
and was very sick indeed and had a very bad stomach-ache. But to
comfort me I got your dear letter with a sermon, but who is to
preach it?"
"_Nov. 6._--Dearest Mamma, as soon as we came down yesterday all
our dresses for the fifth of November were laid out. After
breakfast the procession was dressed, and as soon as the sentinel
proclaimed that the clock struck ten, the grand procession set
out: first Gumbleton and Sheppard dressed up with straps, cocked
hats, and rosettes, carrying between them, on a chair, Samuel
dressed as Guy Fawkes in a large cocked hat and short cloak and
with a lanthorn in his hand. Then came Proby carrying a Union Jack,
and Walter (Arnold) with him, with rosettes and bands. Then King
Alick with a crown turned up with ermine, and round his leg a blue
garter. Behind him walked the Queen (Deacon Coles) with a purple
crown and long yellow robe and train, and Princess Elizabeth (me)
in a robe and train of pink and green. After the procession had
moved round the garden, singing--
'Remember, remember,
The fifth of November, &c,'
the sentinel of the guard announced that the cart of faggots was
coming up the hill ... and in the evening was a beautiful bonfire
and fireworks.
"What a pity it is that the new railway does not turn aside to save
Lewes Priory. I shall like very much to see the skeletons, but I
had much rather that Gundrada and her husband lay still in their
coffins, and that the Priory had not been disturbed.... It is only
five weeks now to the holidays."
"_Nov. 28._--Counting to the 19th, and not counting the day of
breaking up, it is now only three weeks to the holidays. I will
give you a history of getting home. From Lewes I shall look out for
the castle and the Visitation church. Then I shall pass Ringmer,
the Green Man Inn, Laughton, the Bat and Ball; then the Dicker,
Horsebridge, the Workhouse, the turnpike, the turn to Carter's
Corner, the turn to Magham Down, Woodham's Farm, the Deaf and Dumb
House, the Rectory on the hill, the Mile Post--'15 miles to Lewes,'
Lime Wood, the gate (oh! when shall I be there!)--then turn in, the
Flower Field, the Beaney Field, _the_ gate--oh! the garden--two
figures--John and Lea, perhaps you--perhaps even the kittens will
come to welcome their master. Oh my Lime! in little more than three
weeks I shall be there!"
"_Hurrah for Dec. 1._--On Wednesday it will be, not counting
breaking-up day, two weeks, and oh! the Wednesday after we shall
say 'one week.' This month we break up! I dream of nothing, think
of nothing, but coming home. To-day we went with Mr. Walker (the
usher) to Chippenham, and saw where Lea and I used to go to sit on
the wooden bridge.... Not many more letters! not many more sums!"
How vividly, how acutely, I recollect that--in my passionate devotion to
my mother--I used, as the holidays approached, to conjure up the most
vivid mental pictures of my return to her, and appease my longing with
the thought of how she would rush out to meet me, of her ecstatic
delight, &c.; and then how terrible was the bathos of the reality, when
I drove up to the silent door of Lime, and nobody but Lea took any
notice of my coming; and of the awful chill of going into the
drawing-room and seeing my longed-for and pined-for mother sit still in
her chair by the fire till I went up and kissed her. To her, who had
been taught always to curtsey not only to her father, but even to her
father's chair, it was only natural; but I often sobbed myself to sleep
in a little-understood agony of anguish--an anguish that she could not
really care for me.
"Oh, the little more, and how much it is!
And the little less, and what worlds away!"[37]
In the winter of 1845-46, "Aunt Lucy" let Rockend to Lord Beverley, and
came to live at Lime for six months with her three children, a
governess, and two, sometimes three, servants. As she fancied herself
poor, and this plan was economical, it was frequently repeated
afterwards. On the whole, the arrangement was satisfactory to me, as
though Aunt Lucy was excessively unkind to me, and often did not speak a
single word to me for many weeks together, and though the children were
most tormenting, Aunt Esther--a far greater enemy--was at least kept at
bay, for Aunt Lucy detested her influence and going to the Rectory quite
as cordially as I did.
How often I remember my ever-impatient rebellion against the doctrine I
was always taught as fundamental--that my uncles and aunts must be
always right, and that to question the absolute wisdom and justice of
their every act--to me so utterly selfish--was typical of the meanest
and vilest nature. How odd it is that parents, and still more uncles and
aunts, never will understand, that whilst they are criticising and
scrutinising their children or nephews, the latter are also scrutinising
and criticising them. Yet so it is: investigation and judgment of
character is usually mutual. During this winter, however, I imagine that
the aunts were especially amiable, as in the child's play which I wrote,
and which we all acted--"The Hope of the Katzekoffs"--they, with my
mother, represented the three fairies--"Brigida, Rigida, and
Frigida"--Aunt Lucy, I need hardly say, being Frigida, and Aunt Esther
Rigida.
[Illustration: Augustus J. C. Hare