"_April 8, 1855._--The mother has greeted me with 'A blessed Easter
to you, darling--Christ is risen.' Last night tears came into her
eyes as she remembered that Uncle Julius would never say those
words to her again, but to-day she is bright and smiling, and the
sunshine outside seems reflected from her. The others have been to
church, so I have been alone most of the day in her sick-room."
"_April 9._--In my mother's room most of the day. My Oxford work is
sadly hindered; but that is not my first duty."
"_April 14._--The dear mother came downstairs for the first time
since her illness, and was delighted with the flowers--the heaths
and cinerarias in the window recesses, and the masses of violets in
the garden. There was much to be told that was new to her, of all
that had happened since she went upstairs, but which had to be told
very cautiously, for fear of over-excitement. Arthur Stanley, who
has been here some days, examined me in my work, and in the
afternoon we had a delightful walk through the woods to the
farmhouse of the Hole."
[Illustration: LIME, FROM THE GARDEN.]
"_April 15._--Arthur preached in the church on the spies bringing
back to the Israelites the fruits of the promised land--going on to
describe how the fruits of _our_ promised land were given us in the
lives of those who were gone before--that these were the fruits of
the Spirit spoken of in three verses of the Bible--verses better
known perhaps and more loved than any others by the people of
Hurstmonceaux. The first was written on the distant grave of one
whom many of them had never seen, but whom all of them had heard
of--Augustus, whose fruit was 'gentleness, and meekness, and long
suffering.' The second was the verse inscribed on the older of the
crosses under their own yew-tree: 'righteousness and truth' were
the especial points which Marcus bore. The third was written on the
latest and most loved cross: it told of 'wisdom'--that was Julius's
fruit."
"_April 16._--I left my darling mother to return to my work at
Oxford. I remained with her till John tapped at the door to say the
carriage was there. 'God bless you, my own darling--God bless you,
dearest'--and I was gone, leaving my sweetest one looking after me
with a smile upon her face. Oh, what a blessing it has been to
leave her thus! How different this leaving Lime might have been,
with no sense of home remaining, except in the shadow of the
yew-tree and by the crosses in the churchyard!"
I might write of my mother as Chalmers of the Duchesse de Broglie: "Her
prayers poured forth in her domestic circle, falling upon my ears like
the music of Paradise, leave their fragrance behind them, and sweet is
their remembrance."
On my way back to Oxford, I first saw the beautiful Empress Eugenie on
her passage through London to Windsor with the Emperor Napoleon III.
They had a most enthusiastic reception, the streets were thronged
everywhere, and it was a very fine sight. Almost immediately after
reaching college I was "in the Schools" for "Moderations," but did very
well, as I had employed every available moment in preparing myself.
Nevertheless, I was too anxious to go to fetch my own _testamur_, and
vividly recall the feeling of ecstasy with which, from my high oriel
window, I saw my friend Milligan come waving it round the corner of the
High Street. A delightful feature of this term, which I always remember
with pleasure, was an excursion by rail to Evesham and its abbey, just
when the apple-orchards, with which the whole vale is filled, were in
bloom like a great garden. As summer approached, we were frequently on
the river. George Sheffield generally "punted" me, and Milligan floated
alongside in a canoe. Another expedition of very great interest to me
was that to Chalfont St. Giles in Buckinghamshire, where I saw the
Vatche, the home of my great-great-grandfather, Bishop Hare, who married
its heiress, a very attractive and charming place, which was sold by my
great-grandfather. The "Hare Mausoleum," a hideous brick building, was
then standing, attached to the church, and there Bishop Hare and many of
his descendants were buried, the last funeral having been that (in 1820)
of Anna-Maria Bulkeley, daughter of my grandfather's sister. The minute
descriptions, with which I was familiar, in the letters of Bishop Hare
and his widow, gave quite a historic charm to the scenes at
Chalfont--the window where Mary Hare sate "in her great house, much too
big and good for her, with as few servants as she could make shift
with," and watched her "deare lord carried to church"--the steep lane
down which the stately procession, in which "there were no bishops for
pall-bearers because it was too cold for them to come into the country,"
passed with such difficulty--the manor pew, where Mary Margaret Hare
complained over "Laurentia and all the troublesome little children"--the
almshouses, built and endowed by the Robert Hare who married Miss
Selman.
The installation of Lord Derby as Chancellor and the reception of
Disraeli (then still a dandy in ringlets, velvet waistcoat, and
prominent gold chains) made the "Commemoration" of this year especially
exciting; though my pleasure in it was damped by the sudden news of the
failure of Sir John Paul's[104] bank in the Strand, and fear for its
effect upon my "real mother" and sister, who lost about two thousand a
year by this catastrophe, though it was not this cause which involved
them in the irretrievable ruin that afterwards befell them.
The longer I lived at Oxford, the more I learnt how little I could
believe anything I heard there. Connected with a college of which many
of the members belonged to the _lower_ upper classes of society, I had
peculiar opportunities for observing how often young men thought it
worth while to pretend to a position and acquaintances which did not
belong to them. One instance of this is too extraordinary to be omitted.
From the very beginning of February, certain men in Hall (the great
place for gossip and scandal) had spoken constantly of a certain Mrs.
Fortescue, who had come to reside in Oxford, an exceedingly clever
person and very highly connected. The subject did not interest me in the
least, but still I heard of her so often, that I could not help being
familiar with her name. Gradually her acquaintance seem to extend; men
said, "I don't _exactly_ know Mrs. Fortescue, but my family do"--or "my
friend so and so means to introduce me," and so on. Mrs. Fortescue's
witty sayings also were frequently repeated and commented upon. After
some months it was said that Mrs. Fortescue was going to give a ball,
for which there was anxiety to procure invitations--some men "had them,
but did not mean to go,"--others were "sure to have them." As I did not
wish to go, the subject was of very slight importance to me.
Within a week of the alleged date of Mrs. Fortescue's ball, my friend P.
came late at night to see me. He said, "I have a dreadful thing to tell
you. I have a secret to reveal at which you will be aghast.... _I am
Mrs. Fortescue!_" Early in the year, observing how apt men were to
assume intimacies which they did not possess, he and one or two other
friends had agreed to talk incessantly of one person, a wholly imaginary
person, and, while "making her the fashion," see if, very soon, a number
of men would not pretend to be intimate with her. Dozens fell into the
trap. In a certain class of men, every one was afraid of being behind
his neighbour in boasting of an intimacy, &c., with one who was praised
so highly. They even pretended to have received invitations to the
imaginary ball. But the trick had assumed much greater dimensions than
ever was intended at first; many people had been duped whose fury at
the discovery would be a serious matter; many Oxford ladies had been
asked to the ball, and, in fact, there was nothing to be done _now_ but
to go through with the whole drama to the end--the ball must take place!
P. was quite prepared for the emergency of having to represent Mrs.
Fortescue, but positively refused to go through it alone. His object was
to implore me to help him out by appearing in some assumed character.
This I for a long time refused, but at length assented to get up all the
statistics of the neighbouring great house of Nuneham, and to arrive as
Miss Harcourt, an imaginary niece of Lady Waldegrave, just come from
thence. I was well acquainted with the best Oxford dressmaker, with whom
one of my friends lodged, and she undertook to make my dress; while
various styles of hair were tried by another person, who undertook that
department, to see which produced the most complete disguise.
When the evening of the ball arrived, I took care to reach "Wyatt's
Rooms" very early. Only a number of men and a very few ladies were
there, when "Miss Harcourt--Miss Amy Leighton" were shouted up the
staircase, and I sailed up (with another undergraduate, who represented
my somewhat elderly companion) in a white tulle dress trimmed with a
little gold lace and looped up with blue cornflowers, a wreath (wreaths
were worn then) of the same, and a blue opera-cloak. Mrs. Fortescue, an
elderly handsome woman, quite on the _retour_, dressed in crimson satin,
came forward to meet me and kissed me on both cheeks, and I was
introduced to a lady--a _real_ lady--by whom I sate down. It is
impossible to detail all the absurdities of the situation, all the
awkward positions we were thrown into (Mrs. Fortescue had engaged her
servants, being then in morning toilette, days before). Suffice it to
say that the guests assembled, and the ball and the supper afterwards
went off perfectly, and gave boundless satisfaction. I only refused to
dance, pretending to have sprained my ankle in coming down in the train
some days before; but I limped round the room on the arm of my own
doctor (who never discovered me) between the dances, and examined the
pictures on the walls. Mrs. Fortescue was inimitable. The trick was
never discovered at the time, and would still be a secret, but that a
friend, to whom I had revealed the story on promise of _strict secrecy_,
repeated it long afterwards to P.'s elder brother. In June my mother
visited me at Oxford, on her way to West Malvern, where we had
delightful rooms overlooking the Herefordshire plains, in the house of
"Phœbe Gale," who had long been a valued servant in the family. We
much enjoyed delightful drives with the Leycesters in the neighbourhood;
also frequently we went to see the Miss Ragsters, two remnants of one of
the oldest families in Worcestershire, who, in a great age, were living,
very poor, in a primitive farmhouse, with their one servant Betty--"the
girl" they always called her, who still wore a pinafore, though she had
been in their service forty-seven years. Their life had never varied:
they had never seen a railway, and had never even been to Little
Malvern. They gave a curious account of the poet Wordsworth coming to
luncheon with them.
From Malvern I went to the Wye with Willie Milligan. "Never," as I wrote
to my mother, "was there a companion so delightful, so amusing, so
charming and good-natured under all circumstances--and his circumstances
were certainly none of the most brilliant, as he lost all his luggage at
the outset, and had to perform the whole journey with nothing of his own
but a comb and a tooth-brush." Wherever we went, he made friends,
retailing all the local information gained from one person to the next
he met, in the most entertaining way. Especially do I remember one
occasion at Chepstow. I was drawing the castle, surrounded by about a
hundred little children, and he made himself so charming to them, and
was so indescribably entertaining, that one after the other of the
little things succumbed, till at last the whole party were rolling on
the ground in fits of uncontrollable laughter. On this visit to Chepstow
I remember the touching incident of our walking in the churchyard late
at night, and seeing a woman bring a number of glow-worms to put upon
her child's grave, that she might still see it from the window of her
cottage. We saw Tintern, Raglan, Goodrich (the great collection of
"Meyrick's Ancient Armour" was there then), and Ross, with its old
market-house, still standing, owing to the recent defence of the
market-women, who had positively refused to enter a new one which had
been built for them. A shorter expedition from Malvern was one which I
made with Emma Leycester to Worcester, which resulted in a story I
published in a magazine years afterwards--"The Shadows of Old
Worcester." In one of the passages of the china manufactory we saw a
figure of "Tragedy"--a magnificently handsome woman with a wreath of
laurel on her head. Was it Mrs. Siddons? "No," said the guide, "it was
modelled from a poor girl who used to work here, and who was murdered by
her lover _last night_."
From Malvern we drove through the rose-fringed lanes by Ledbury to
Hereford, and then went to stay at Tickwood, in Shropshire, with my
uncle's old friend Mr. Hull, and Mrs. Butler, my mother's early
instructress, who lived there to take care of his only child by his
second wife (Miss Rowe)--Rowna--whose great wealth was her only fault in
her father's eyes. Afterwards we went to meet our old friends, the
Tayleurs of Buntingsdale, at the quaint old Raven Inn at Shrewsbury, and
thence proceeded to Llangollen and Valle Crucis. Plas Newydd, the house
of "the ladies of Llangollen,"[105] was still in existence--a very
ridiculous little place; and "the ladies" had had successors, Miss
Andrews and Miss Lolly!--of whom Miss Lolly still survived. A beautiful
varied drive by Corwen and Bettwys y Coed took us to the Penrhyn Arms
at Capel Curig, where my mother had often been in her childhood, and
where, at the bottom of the garden, is the noble view of Snowdon across
lake and moorland, so well known from pictures innumerable. From
Llanberis I ascended Snowdon, which in my recollection is--from its
innate picturesqueness, not its views--the only mountain in Europe worth
ascending, except Soracte. Afterwards we went to the William
Stanleys[106] at Penrhôs in Anglesea, and it was a very pleasant visit,
as Mrs. William Stanley was a most kind and amusing person, good-natured
to young people, and exceedingly pleased with my delight over all she
showed me, especially over the rocks--so glorious in colour--near the
South Stack lighthouse. It recalls oddly the extreme poverty as to
pocket-money in which I spent my youth, when I remember that the sum of
£2 which my Aunt Lucy gave me at Penrhôs was at twenty-one the largest
present in money that I had ever yet received in my life. I spent it in
the purchase of Lord Lindsay's "Christian Art."
After visiting Penrhyn Castle, we went to take lodgings near the Albert
Ways at Conway, of which I recollect nothing remarkable except the
exemplification of "cast not your pearls before swine" in the frantic
eagerness the pigs at Towen showed to get at the mussels from which the
tiny pearls found there (and sold at two shillings an ounce) were being
extracted by the pearl-fishers. Our next visit was to Bodelwyddelan, the
fine place of Sir John and Lady Sarah Williams. We went afterwards to
Alton Towers, Ham in Dovedale, Matlock, and Rowsley--whence I saw
Chatsworth and spent several days in drawing the old courts of Haddon
Hall.
All through the past winter the Crimean War had been an absorbing
interest, people had sobbed in the churches when the prayer for time of
war was read, and even those not immediately concerned had waited in
agonised expectation for the news from the Alma, Inkermann, the Redan.
While we were at Lichfield came the news of the capture of Sebastopol,
announced by the bells of the cathedral, followed by all the churches,
and every town and village became gay with flags from every window.
In returning home this year, I felt even more anxious than before to
improve and educate myself, and always got up for the purpose as early
as I could, recollecting how Chevalier Bunsen, by always getting up four
hours before other people, made his year into sixteen months instead of
twelve. Beginning to think of colour in sketching now tended to make me
even more observant than I had been of the wonderfully artistic elements
of the scenery around our home--the long lines of the levels with their
fleeting shadows, the delicate softness of the distant downs, the trees
embossed in their dark green against the burnt-up grass of the old
deer-park.