Being very ill with the measles kept me at home till the middle of
February. Aunt Lucy's three children also had the measles, and were very
ill; and it is well remembered as characteristic of Aunt Esther, that
she said when they were at the worst--"I am _very glad_ they are so ill:
it is a well-deserved punishment because their mother would not let
them go to church for fear they should catch it there." Church and a
love of church was the standard by which Aunt Esther measured
everything. In all things she had the inflexible cruelty of a Dominican.
She would willingly and proudly undergo martyrdom herself for her own
principles, but she would torture without remorse those who differed
from her.
When we were recovering, Aunt Lucy read "Guy Mannering" aloud to us. It
was enchanting. I had always longed beyond words to read Scott's novels,
but had never been allowed to do so--"they were too exciting for a boy!"
But usually, as Aunt Lucy and my mother sat together, their conversation
was almost entirely about the spiritual things in which their hearts,
their mental powers, their whole being were absorbed. The doctrine of
Pascal was always before their minds--"La vie humaine n'est qu'une
illusion perpetuelle," and their treasure was truly set in heavenly
places. They would talk of heaven in detail just as worldly people would
talk of the place where they were going for change of air. At this time,
I remember, they both wished--no, I suppose they only thought they
wished--to die: they talked of longing, pining for "the coming of the
kingdom," but when they grew really old, when the time which they had
wished for before was in all probability really near, and when they
were, I believe, far more really prepared for it, they ceased to wish
for it. "By-and-by" would do. I imagine it is always thus.
Aunt Lucy loved her second boy Theodore much the best of her three
children, and made the greatest possible difference between him and the
others. I remember this being very harshly criticised at the time; but
now it seems to me only natural that in any family there must be
favourites. It is with earthly parents as Dr. Foxe said in a sermon
about God, that "though he may love all his children, he must have an
especial feeling for his saints."
_To_ MY MOTHER.
"_March 13._--My dearest, dearest Mamma, to-day is my 12th
birthday. How well I remember many happy birthdays at Stoke, when
before breakfast I had a wreath of snowdrops, and at dinner a
little pudding with my name in plums.... I will try this new year
to throw away self and think less how to please it. Good-bye dear
Mamma."
In March the news that my dear (Mary) Lea was going to marry our
man-servant John Gidman was an awful shock to me. My mother might easily
have prevented this (most unequal) marriage, which, as far as Mrs.
Leycester was concerned, was an elopement. It was productive of great
trouble to us afterwards, and obliged me to endure John Gidman, to wear
him like a hair-shirt, for forty years. Certainly no ascetic torments
can be so severe as those which Providence occasionally ordains for us.
As for our dear Lea herself, her marriage brought her misery enough, but
her troubles always stayed in her heart and never filtered through. As I
once read in an American novel, "There ain't so much difference in the
troubles on this earth, as there is in the folks that have to bear
them."
_To_ MY MOTHER.
"_March 20._--O my very dearest Mamma. What news! what news! I
cannot believe it! and yet sometimes I have thought it might
happen, for one night a long time ago when I was sitting on Lea's
lap--O what shall I call her now? may I still call her Lea? Well,
one night a long time ago, I said that Lea would never marry, and
she asked why she shouldn't, and said something about--'Suppose I
marry John.' ... I was sure she could never leave us. I put your
letter away for some time till Mrs. Kilvert sent me upstairs for my
gloves. Then I opened it, and the first words I saw were
'Lea--married.' I was so surprised I could not speak or move....
How very odd it will be for Lea to be a bride. Why, John is not
half so old as Lea, is he?... Tell me all about the wedding--every
smallest weeest thing--What news! what news!"
MARY (LEA) GIDMAN _to_ A. J. C. H.
"_Stoke_, _March_ 29, 1846.--My darling child, a thousand thanks
for your dear little letter. I hope the step I have taken will not
displease you. If there is anything in it you don't like, I must
humbly beg your pardon. I will give you what account I can of the
wedding. Your dear Mamma has told you that she took me to
Goldstone. Then on Saturday morning a little after nine my mother's
carriage and a saddle-horse were brought to the gate to take us to
Cheswardine. My sister Hannah and her husband and George Bentley
went with me to church. I wished you had been with me so very much,
but I think it was better that your dear Mamma was not there, for
very likely it would have given her a bad headache and have made me
more nervous than I was, but I got through all of it better than I
expected I should. As soon as it was over the bells began to ring.
We came back to Goldstone, stayed about ten minutes, then went to
Drayton, took the coach for Whitmore, went by rail to Chelford, and
then we got a one-horse fly which took us to Thornycroft to John's
grandfather's, where we were received with much joy. We stayed
there till Wednesday, then went for one night to Macclesfield, and
came back to Goldstone on Thursday and stayed there till Friday
evening. Then we came back to Stoke. The servants received us very
joyfully, and your dear Mamma showed me such tender feelings and
kindness, it is more than I can tell you now. My dear child, I hope
you will always call me Lea. I cannot bear the thought of your
changing my name, for the love I have for you nothing can ever
change. My mother and Hannah wish you had been in the garden with
me gathering their flowers, there is such a quantity of them.... We
leave Stoke to-morrow, and on Friday reach your and our dear Lime.
I shall write to you as soon as we get back, and now goodbye, my
darling child, from your old affectionate nurse Lea."
[Illustration: REV. O. LEYCESTER'S GRAVE, STOKE CHURCHYARD.]
The great age of my dear Grandfather Leycester, ninety-five, had always
made his life seem to us to hang upon a thread, and very soon after I
returned home for my summer holidays, we were summoned to Stoke by the
news of his death. This was a great grief to me, not only because I was
truly attached to the kind old man, but because it involved the parting
with the happiest scenes of my childhood, the only home in which I had
ever been really happy. The dear Grandfather's funeral was very
different from that which I had attended last year, and I shed many
tears by his grave in the churchyard looking out upon the willows and
the shining Terne. Afterwards came many sad partings, last visits to
Hawkestone, Buntingsdale, Goldstone; last rambles to Helshore, Jackson's
Pool, and the Islands; and then we all came away--my Uncle Penrhyn
first, then Aunt Kitty, then my mother and Lea and I, and lastly
Grannie, who drove in her own carriage all the way to her house in New
Street, Spring Gardens, the posting journey, so often talked of,
actually taking place at last. Henceforward Stoke seemed to be
transferred to New Street, which was filled with relics of the old
Shropshire Rectory, and where Mrs. Cowbourne, Margaret Beeston, Anne
Tudor, and Richard the footman, with Rose the little red and white
spaniel, were household inmates as before.
I thought the house in New Street charming--the cool, old-fashioned,
bow-windowed rooms, which we should now think very scantily furnished,
and like those of many a country inn; the dining-room opening upon wide
leads, which Grannie soon turned into a garden; the drawing-room, which
had a view through the trees of the Admiralty Garden to the Tilting
Yard, with the Horse Guards and the towers of Westminster Abbey.
The grief of leaving Stoke made me miserably unwell, and a doctor was
sent for as soon as I arrived at the Stanleys' house, 38 Lower Brook
Street, who came to me straight from a patient ill with the scarlatina,
and gave me the disorder. For three weeks I was very seriously ill in
hot summer weather, in stifling rooms, looking on the little black
garden and chimney-pots at the back of the house. Mary and Kate Stanley
were sent away from the infection, and no one came near me except my
faithful friend Miss Clinton, who brought me eau-de-Cologne and flowers.
It was long foolishly concealed from me that I had the scarlatina, and
therefore, as I felt day after day of the precious holidays ebbing away,
while I was pining for coolness and fresh country air, my mental fever
added much to my bodily ailments, whereas, when once told that I was
seriously ill, I was quite contented to lie still. Before I quite
recovered, my dear nurse Lea became worn-out with attending to me, and
we had scarcely reached Lime before she became most dangerously ill with
a brain-fever. For many days and nights she lay on the brink of the
grave, and great was my agony while this precious life was in danger.
Aunt Esther, who on _great_ occasions generally behaved kindly, was very
good at this time, ceased to persecute me, and took a very active part
in the nursing.
At length our dear Lea was better, and as I was still very fragile, I
went with my mother and Anne Brooke, our cook, to Eastbourne--then a
single row of little old-fashioned houses by the sea--where we
inhabited, I should think, the very smallest and humblest lodging that
ever was seen. I have often been reminded of it since in reading the
account of Peggotty's cottage in "David Copperfield." It was a tiny
house built of flints, amongst the boats, at the then primitive end of
Eastbourne, towards the marshes, and its miniature rooms were filled
with Indian curiosities, brought to the poor widow to whom it belonged
by a sailor son. The Misses Thomas of Wratton came to see us here, and
could hardly suppress their astonishment at finding us in such a
place--and when the three tall smart ladies had once got into our room,
no one was able to move, and all had to go out in the order in which
they were nearest the door. But my mother always enjoyed exceedingly
these primitive places, and would sit for hours on the beach with her
Taylor's "Holy Living" or her "Christian Year," and had soon made many
friends amongst the neighbouring cottagers, whose houses were quite as
fine as her own, and who were certainly more cordial to the lady who had
not minded settling down as one of themselves, than they would have been
to a smart visitor in a carriage. The most remarkable of these people
was an excellent old woman called Deborah Pattenden, who lived in the
half of a boat turned upside down, and had had the most extraordinary
adventures. My first literary work was her biography, which told how she
had suffered the pains of drowning, burning (having been enveloped in
flames while struck by lightning), and how she had lain for twenty-one
days in a rigid trance (from "the plague," she described it) without
food or sign of life, and was near being buried alive. We found a
transition from our cottage life in frequent visits to Compton Place,
where Mrs. Cavendish, mother of the 7th Duke of Devonshire, lived then,
with her son Mr. Cavendish, afterwards Lord Richard. She was a charming
old lady, who always wore white, and had very simple and very timid
manners. But she was fond of my mother, who was quite adored by Lord
Richard, by whom we were kept supplied with the most beautiful fruits
and flowers of the Compton Gardens. He was very kind to me also, and
would sometimes take me to his bookcases and tell me to choose any book
I liked for my own. We seldom afterwards passed a summer without going
for a few days to Compton Place as long as Mrs. Cavendish lived there.
It was there that I made my first acquaintance with the existence of
many simple luxuries to which, in our primitive life, we were quite
unaccustomed, but which in great houses are considered almost as
necessaries. The Cavendishes treated us as distant relations, in
consequence of the marriage of my Grandmother's cousin, Georgiana
Spencer, with the 5th Duke of Devonshire.
When I returned to Harnish I was still wretchedly ill, and the constant
sickness under which I suffered, with the extreme and often unjust
severity of Mr. Kilvert, made the next half year a very miserable one.
In the three years and a half which I had spent at Harnish, I had been
taught next to nothing--all our time having been frittered in learning
Psalms by heart, and the Articles of the Church of England (I could say
the whole thirty-nine straight off when eleven years old), &c. Our
history was what Arrowsmith's Atlas used to describe Central Africa to
be--"a barren country only productive of dates." I could scarcely
construe even the easiest passages of Cæsar. Still less had I learned to
play at any ordinary boys' games; for, as we had no playground, we had
naturally never had a chance of any. I was glad of any change. It was
delightful to leave Harnish for good at Christmas, 1846, and the
prospect of Harrow was that of a voyage of adventure.
In January 1847 my mother took me to Harrow. Dr. Vaughan was then
headmaster, and Mr. Simpkinson, who had been long a curate of
Hurstmonceaux, and who had been consequently one of the most familiar
figures of my childhood, was a master under him, and, with his handsome,
good-humoured sister Louisa, kept the large house for boys beyond the
church, which is still called "The Grove." It was a wonderfully new life
upon which I entered; but though a public school was a very much rougher
thing then than it is now, and though the fagging for little boys was
almost ceaseless, it would not have been an unpleasant life if I had not
been so dreadfully weak and sickly, which sometimes unfitted me for
enduring the roughness to which I was subjected. As a general rule,
however, I looked upon what was intended for bullying as an additional
"adventure," which several of the big boys thought so comic, that they
were usually friendly to me and ready to help me: one who especially
stood my friend was a young giant--Twisleton, son of Lord Saye and Sele.
One who went to Harrow at the same time with me was my connection Harry
Adeane,[38] whose mother was Aunt Lucy's sister, Maude Stanley of
Alderley. I liked Harry very much, but though he was in the same house,
his room was so distant that we saw little of each other; besides, my
intense ignorance gave me a very low place in the school, in the Lower
Fourth Form. It was a great amusement to write to my mother all that
occurred. In reading it, people might imagine my narration was intended
for complaint, but it was nothing of the kind: indeed, had I wished to
complain, I should have known my mother far too well to complain to
_her_.
_To_ MY MOTHER.
"_Harrow, Jan. 29, 1847._--When I left you, I went to school and
came back to pupil room, and in the afternoon had a solitary walk
to the skating pond covered with boys.... In the evening two big
boys rushed up, and seizing Buller (another new boy) and me,
dragged us into a room where a number of boys were assembled. I was
led into the midst. Bob Smith[39] whispered to me to do as I was
bid and I should not be hurt. On the other side of the room were
cold chickens, cake, fruit, &c., and in a corner were a number of
boys holding open little Dirom's mouth, and pouring something
horrible stirred up with a tallow-candle down his throat. A great
boy came up to me and told me to sing or to drink some of this
dreadful mixture. I did sing--at least I made a noise--and the boys
were pleased because I made no fuss, and loaded me with oranges and
cakes.
"This morning being what is _called_ a whole holiday, I have had to
stay in three hours more than many of the others because of my
slowness in making Latin verses. This evening Abel Smith sent for
me to his room, and asked me if I was comfortable, and all sorts of
things."
"_Jan. 21._--What do you think happened last night? Before prayers
I was desired to go into the fifth form room, as they were having
some game there. A boy met me at the door, ushered me in, and told
me to make my salaam to the Emperor of Morocco, who was seated
cross-legged in the middle of a large counterpane, surrounded by
twenty or more boys as his serving-men. I was directed to sit down
by the Emperor, and in the same way. He made me sing, and then
jumped off the counterpane, as he said, to get me some cake.
Instantly all the boys seized the counterpane and tossed away. Up
to the ceiling I went and down again, but they had no mercy, and it
was up and down, head over heels, topsy-turvy, till some one called
out 'Satus'--and I was let out, very sick and giddy at first, but
soon all right again.... I am not much bullied except by Davenport,
who sleeps in my room."
"_Jan. 22._--To-day it has snowed so hard that there has been
nothing but snow-balling, and as I was coming out of school, hit
by a shower of snowballs, I tumbled the whole way down the two
flights of stairs headlong from the top to the bottom."
"_Jan. 23._--Yesterday I was in my room, delighted to be alone for
once, and very much interested in the book I was reading, when D.
came in and found the fire out, so I got a good licking. He makes
me his fag to go errands, and do all he bids me, and if I don't do
it, he beats me, but I don't mind much. However, I have got some
friends, for when I refused to do my week-day lessons on a Sunday,
and was being very much laughed at for it, some one came in and
said, 'No, Hare, you're quite right; never mind being laughed at.'
However I am rather lonely still with no one to speak to or care
about me. Sometimes I take refuge in Burroughs' study, but I cannot
do that often, or he would soon get tired of me. I think I shall
like Waldegrave,[40] a new boy who has come, but all the others
hate him. Blomfield[41] is a nice boy, but his room is very far
away. Indeed, our room is so secluded, that it would be a very
delightful place if D. did not live in it. In playtime I go here,
there, and everywhere, but with no one and doing nothing. Yet I
like Harrow very much, though I am much teased even in my form by
one big boy, who takes me for a drum, and hammers on my two sides
all lesson-time with doubled fists. However, Miss Simmy says, if
you could see my roses you would be satisfied."
"_Jan. 30._--There are certain fellows here who read my last letter
to you, and gave me a great lecture for mentioning boys' names; but
you must never repeat what I say: it could only get me into
trouble. The other night I did a desperate thing. I appealed to the
other boys in the house against D. Stapleton was moved by my story,
and Hankey and other boys listened. Then a boy called Sturt was
very much enraged at D., and threatened him greatly, and finally
D., after heaping all the abuse he could think of upon me, got so
frightened that he begged me to be friends with him. I cannot tell
you how I have suffered and do suffer from my chilblains, which
have become so dreadfully bad from going out so early and in all
weathers."
"_Feb. 2._--To-day, after half-past one Bill, I went down the town
with Buller and met two boys called Bocket and Lory. Lory and I,
having made acquaintance, went for a walk. This is only the second
walk I have had since I came to Harrow. I am perpetually 'Boy in
the House.'"
"_Feb. 10._--To-day at 5 minutes to 11, we were all told to go into
the Speech-room (do you remember it?), a large room with raised
benches all round and a platform in the middle and places for the
monitors. I sat nearly at the top of one of these long ranges. Then
Dr. Vaughan made a speech about snow-balling at the Railway Station
(a forbidden place), where the engine-drivers and conductors had
been snow-balled, and he said that the next time, if he could not
find out the names of the guilty individuals, the whole school
should be punished. To-day the snow-balling, or rather ice-balling
(for the balls are so hard you can hardly cut them with a knife),
has been terrific: some fellows almost have their arms broken with
them."
"_Feb. 12._--I am in the hospital with dreadful pains in my
stomach. The hospital is a large room, very quiet, with a window
looking out into the garden, and two beds in it. Burroughs is in
the other bed, laid up with a bad leg.... Yesterday, contrary to
rule, Dr. Vaughan called Bill, and then told all the school to stay
in their places, and said that he had found the keyhole of the
cupboard in which the rods were kept stopped up, and that if he did
not find out before one o'clock who did it, he would daily give the
whole school, from the sixth form downwards, a new pun, of the
severest kind.... There never was anything like the waste of bread
here, whole bushels are thrown about every day, but the bits are
given to the poor people.... I like Valletort[42] very much, and I
like Twisleton,[43] who is one of the biggest boys in this house."
"_Feb. 20._--To-day I went to the Harrisites' steeplechase. Nearly
all the school were there, pouring over hedges and ditches in a
general rush. The Harrisites were distinguished by their white or
striped pink and white jackets and Scotch caps, and all bore
flags."
"_Feb. 21._--I have been out jumping and hare-and-hounds, but we
have hard work now to escape from the slave-drivers for
racket-fagging. Sometimes we do, by one fellow sacrificing himself
and shutting up the others head downwards in the turn-up bedsteads,
where they are quite hidden; and sometimes I get the old woman at
the church to hide me in the little room over the porch till the
slave-drivers have passed."
"_March 1._--I have just come back from Sheen, where I have had a
very happy Exeat. Uncle Norwich gave me five shillings, and Uncle
Penrhyn ten."